Sleeping With The Enemy
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Enterprise makes First Contact with a friendly species on an idyllic planet. There is, however, a snake in Eden. Beta'd by VesperRegina, to whom all due thanks. Rated 'T' for safety because of strictly non-graphic adult themes. Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount. No infringement intended, no profit made.
1. Chapter 1

"They asked for _me_, Sir?" Malcolm Reed blinked in surprise.

"By name, Lieutenant. Seems like you made quite an impression with ... Weapons Master Yathai."

Captain Archer's voice was no more than amiable, but the twinkle was decidedly irksome.

Seated at the Tactical Station, Malcolm decided to ignore it. He could not, however, ignore a request from a member of the planetary council to pay her a visit, however much ill-informed amusement his captain derived from it.

"With your permission, Sir," he said stiffly. "If you feel it's absolutely necessary."

"Seems like we'll be here for a while anyway," the captain went on. "They've asked to talk with T'Pol about making contact with Vulcan, so she's going down again to give them the low-down. She's due to take a shuttle down round about now, so perhaps you could go along for the ride and see how you get on with '_Weapons_ Master Yathai'. Take the rest of the day, if you need to."

The lieutenant rose, uncomfortably aware that a tinge of colour had appeared in his face in response to that entirely inappropriate twinkle. Across the Bridge, Trip was busy investigating some intermittent problem Hoshi had been having with her comms board, and to judge by his grin he had drawn some completely unjustified conclusions too.

He couldn't very well take his superior officers to task, but fortunately for them, both of the ensigns' faces were woodenly inexpressive. He wondered sourly how long that would last after the turbo-lift door closed behind him.

* * *

The ship had encountered the Merixa while they were investigating a pulsar. Another ship had appeared on their long-distance scanners, and like a good tactical officer should he'd monitored its approach, quietly checking that all defence and weapons systems were in perfect readiness should the new arrival prove hostile. The captain, whose implicit belief in the friendliness of other species had been dented but unfortunately not demolished by events so far, had been keen to extend the hand of friendship to anyone who was ready to grasp it.

For once, the captain's optimism had been justified. The Merixa were friendly and inquisitive, and visits had been exchanged between the ships. They'd won Trip's golden opinion by sharing some intriguing suggestions for improving the durability of some of the components of his precious engines, and enchanted Hoshi with their language, which sounded like the chirping of songbirds. Even he himself had relaxed somewhat from his initial suspicion, though not to the extent of inviting any of the visitors to inspect the Armoury. Hospitality, he felt, had its limits.

The invitation to cement good relations by following up with a visit to the Merixa's home planet had been too cordially pressed to pass up. It wasn't at too great a distance, and this, after all, was what the ship had come out into space to do: to make new friends wherever possible, as well as exploring all the non-sentient phenomena that their portion of the galaxy had to offer.

Ever the pessimist, Malcolm had thought it was all a bit too good to be true. He had refrained from mentioning this to Captain Archer, however, at least until he had something more concrete than his innate distrust of the Universe to present by way of evidence; he was in no hurry to be accused once again of having watched too many science fiction films. He had compensated for his enforced silence by being more suspicious than ever when he accompanied the away team down to the planet for the official welcome by the Merixa ruling council, but he had been somewhat discomfited to find his fears groundless for once. The planet had been beautiful, the people welcoming, and not so much as an importunate wasp (or any native equivalent) had intruded on the outdoor banquet set out in the lush gardens to fête their guests.

The Merixa were humanoid and shared some of the characteristics of humans, but they were physically somewhat elongated, perhaps a consequence of having evolved on a world whose gravity was very slightly lower than Earth's. In order to preserve their dignity the visitors had worn weighted boots, but it had been a little difficult to adjust to the way physical objects behaved in reduced gravity. Liquid poured comparatively slowly, anything dropped seemed almost to float groundwards by comparison with anything under normal Earth gravity, and a human body minus the boots was capable of performing leaps that would have beaten any record ever set on their own world.

After the formalities had been gone through and the meal eaten, everyone relaxed. The cultural briefing Hoshi had given the officers on first contact had said that Merixan society was strongly matriarchal. The majority of the natives here were therefore women, but that was not something that any of the officers present were going to object to; the male ones, in particular, this visit coming as it did at the end of a rather tedious month of routine information-gathering. It was probably inevitable that Hoshi and Travis, as the youngest, had gravitated towards a gathering of the more junior of the Merixa, and laughter had soon floated through the air – much like Travis, who had been more than ready to take his boots off when coaxed to demonstrate how the reduced gravity affected Humans. Happily, the entire gathering of dignitaries found it hilarious; the captain had displayed difficulty in concealing a grin, Trip had laughed along with everyone else, and even the ultra-reserved T'Pol had almost appeared tempted to smile.

Malcolm alone had looked on unsmiling. This was supposed to be a diplomatic occasion; the Merixa would be getting a very poor impression of Starfleet officers, in his opinion.

"You are not amused?" a melodic voice had asked from just behind his right shoulder.

That was one of the things about being built on such a slender scale: these people could move as silently as cats, though their careful, almost exaggerated gait made one think of a marionette, albeit one in the hands of a master puppeteer.

Trying not to betray how badly he'd been startled, he turned to find a rather attractive Merix smiling at him. She had long green eyes, slightly slanting upwards at the corners, and long silvery-green silky hair, which made him think of a mermaid. Her skin was the colour of the darkest honey. Her lips were an almost amber hue, and were as attractive as the rest of her. The one thing in which her species differed significantly from Humans was that they had what appeared to be three slender protuberances growing in a line along each cheekbone; he'd thought at first that these were whiskers like a cat's, but they were too thick and appeared to contain muscle, like the barbels on the lower jaw of a catfish. They were constantly in motion, reminding him disconcertingly of small slender snakes, though the tip of each was a tiny pad of flesh about whose function he was far too polite to enquire.

"I don't feel that the ensign's behaviour is wholly appropriate for the occasion," he said tightly, wishing that Captain Archer had a less relaxed attitude towards the members of his crew.

"But no-one is offended," she pointed out, gesturing around. "Should one not relax, among friends?"

_I have no friends. _He couldn't very well say that, however, so he'd contented himself with an inclination of the head, conceding the point.

"You are not drinking," she noted. "May I fetch you something?"

"Nothing, thank you, ma'am. I'm on duty."

"You are Lieutenant Reed, the Head of Security on your ship." Her face had become serious, and the pupils of her eyes widened – far more noticeably than those of a human, reminding him once more of a cat. "You need have no concerns for the safety of your people here. Nobody will harm them."

"I'm sure of that. But I have to obey regulations." He spoke quite gently, not wanting her to be offended. "If we had an emergency on the ship and we had to return unexpectedly, it wouldn't be appropriate for me not to be able to deal with the situation."

"It is admirable that you take your duties so seriously. As I take mine."

He hadn't been able to conceal his astonishment. He'd been informed that the Council had their own chief of security, Weapons Master Yathai, and had expected to be introduced to him or her in due course. It did not seem possible that this young, slender, and very feminine personage could be someone with such grave responsibilities; he must have misunderstood her.

But it seemed that he had not. She was indeed his opposite number in the Merixan hierarchy, as a few words confirmed.

Very few more were necessary to establish that she was not occupying the role as a decoration. For all that the security risk of the occasion was assessed as extremely low, she had not been dismissive of it for that. He nodded approval of her recital of the measures she'd taken to ensure the visitors' safety. There were currently no conflicts in progress among the Merixa, she explained, but that did not mean she could be careless.

He thought, though naturally did not say, that it was refreshing to encounter someone else who actually took security with the appropriate seriousness. Being human, he also thought that it was even more refreshing to encounter someone attractive with whom he could talk as a kindred spirit. They were soon immersed in a discussion that wandered through subjects that were evidently dear to both their hearts, but which to any outsider would have been tiresomely technical. Although he was constantly alert to stay sternly away from revealing anything that might be even close to classified information, she had seemed equally aware of the need to avoid these boundaries. The remainder of the visit had been both relaxing and pleasant – the first such occasion for a very long time that he could recall.

* * *

Now, as he went through the shuttlepod's pre-flight checks, he was conscious of a small glow of anticipation that he sternly repressed. He didn't know why Weapons Master Yathai had asked to speak with him again, and there were a great many duties aboard _Enterprise _that this return visit would force him to delegate or postpone. All in all, it was an inconvenience, not to mention an occasion for his colleagues to indulge in a great deal of inappropriate speculation at his expense. Despite what the captain had said, he had no intention of lingering down on the planet for a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

T'Pol was occupying the co-pilot's seat. For the occasion, in view of her temporary status as a representative of Vulcan as opposed to Starfleet, she was wearing her formal robes, and seemed more unapproachable than ever.

"I believe you also have business with the Merixa, Lieutenant," she said as he closed the channel after informing the launch bay supervisor he was ready to depart.

"Nothing that I was aware of, Sub-Commander," he answered, his voice as neutral as hers. The bay doors opened and the shuttlepod slipped gracefully down and out, responding to his light touch on the navigational controls as docilely as ever.

The planet Javna, which the Merixa inhabited – the third in its star's system of four – had a ring of debris much like Saturn's, probably the remains of one of its moons, of which three were left. Few of the pieces were larger than a human fist, but there were billions of them, spread out in a glimmering narrow plane around the planet's equator. As the shuttle banked easily wide of it, the sunlight glanced off the ice of which many of the bits were composed, turning it momentarily into a gigantic prism.

_Wish on a rainbow,_ said a voice from his childhood. In other circumstances, and had he been much younger, he might even have said it aloud, but the chances of his current companion having heard of the saying were almost as remote as her sympathising with it if she had.

It was better, on all counts, to say nothing.

And besides, he'd long ago given up wishing on anything.


	2. Chapter 2

They were met at the landing area behind the Council buildings, and T'Pol was escorted politely away to begin the diplomatic talks for which she had come. Although she had limited authority to act as an ambassador, she could certainly lay the foundations for the cordial relations between Javna and Vulcan which the Merixa were by all accounts anxious to establish.

The planet's inhabitants were new to space travel, having not long succeeded in achieving warp speed. Their relatively crude technology meant that their area of exploration would be limited for some considerable time, and they had been delighted to encounter a friendly ship so close at hand. On the return journey to _Enterprise _the day before, Malcolm had overheard Captain Archer make a humorous aside to T'Pol that now he knew how the Vulcans had felt when they made First Contact with humans at Bozeman.

"The captain of the _T'Plana-Hath_ had been thoroughly briefed on his responsibilities on the occasion," T'Pol had replied somewhat repressively. "Our chief responsibility during our interaction with Humans has been not to contaminate your culture with technology that is dangerously superior to your own."

Time had been when the captain would have responded to that with some venom, for he had long blamed the Vulcans for holding humanity back from space exploration. Experience, however, had taught him that the dangers the Vulcans had so often quoted had been real enough, and that their interference in Earth's affairs had been kindly enough intended by and large, for all that it had often come across as both patronising and heavy-handed. His initially prickly relationship with T'Pol had also mellowed somewhat, enough that he could evidently recognise that her awkward attempt at reminding him of his similar responsibilities towards the Merixa was intended to be helpful rather than critical.

As Malcolm waited beside the shuttlepod in the bright sunshine for Weapons Master Yathai to put in an appearance (an aide had apologetically tendered her excuses, and said she'd be with him shortly), he found himself reflecting that the reminder could as well have been aimed at himself as at the captain. Yesterday's visit having been a strictly diplomatic one, no weapons had been in evidence. He had therefore been unable to form any opinion of the Merixan technological capabilities in that respect, and wondered uneasily if this rather more formal return visit had been arranged with the intention of trying to glean information from him regarding _Enterprise_'s armaments or Starfleet's weaponry. If so, it was doomed to failure. Even without T'Pol's well-meant strictures regarding contaminating an alien culture, he would never have contemplated disclosing confidential technical information to the Merixa, on weaponry or anything else pertaining to the ship he served. It might be as well to take the earliest opportunity of making that plain, though he'd have to take care to couch it in appropriately diplomatic terms. Diplomacy, unfortunately, had never been his strong point. He was just good at causing explosions, and reflected ruefully that now, if his suspicions were correct, he would have to do his very best to _avoid _causing an explosion. It would not be the pinnacle of his Starfleet career to be solely responsible for rupturing Earth-Javna relations almost before they'd begun.

He didn't have to wait long. Weapons Master Yathai walked out of the shade of the long colonnade, her hands moving gracefully in the air before her in what looked like some kind of sign language. Yesterday she'd been in dark green, a long, flowing dress that emphasised her tiny waist. Today she was in what looked like some kind of high-necked uniform coverall, blue like his own but many shades darker. Its only concession to femininity was that the side seams were slashed open from the knee as far as the ankle, allowing tantalising glimpses of the very long legs within. Her long hair was caught up in a ponytail, and the simple, stylish jewellery of the day before was gone. He did not fail to notice that she was now armed: on her left hip there was a clip from which hung a short-muzzled projectile weapon of some kind, while strapped around her right thigh there was a leather sheath from which the hilt of a dagger protruded.

"I ask your forgiveness for keeping you waiting, Lieutenant Reed," she said as she came up level with him. The UT had been fully programmed by Hoshi, but despite being processed through a machine some of the musicality of the Merixan speech remained. "I had forgotten you would not understand our distance-speaking." Obviously interpreting his slightly blank look without difficulty, she elucidated. "When one wishes to communicate strong feeling at a distance, one uses signs. It is a part of our culture. I signed you my apologies, but you naturally did not understand."

It was a part of Earth's culture too, he mused, but hardly on such an elevated plane. Most of the hand signs in use when he was back on his own world had far from civilised meanings.

"I'm sure you had excellent reason for the delay," he said politely. "I understand from Captain Archer that you requested to speak to me."

She stood facing him. She was perhaps half a head taller than he was, but then most of the members of her species he'd encountered thus far over-topped him by at least that much, and he acquitted her of any intention of using her height to intimidate him. Her posture was as military as that of a MACO, even more formal than his own.

"I wish to ask a favour of you," she replied.

His face remained impassive, but his heart sank. It appeared his forebodings had been correct. "I would have to obtain permission from Captain Archer," he said formally. "As my commanding officer, he would have to consider any requests you might make. Any action I take must depend on him."

"The Council has already been in contact with your captain and explained the situation." Her gaze was open. "Naturally you will want to verify this for yourself."

She'd got that right. With any luck, the captain would have got the full story already – he'd certainly have demanded it – and could issue him with guidelines. And any 'favour' the ship's tactical officer might be in a position to do would stay very, very strictly within them.

"You may feel more comfortable contacting your ship in privacy. If you wish to use your shuttlepod's communications system I will wait outside." The care with which she pronounced 'shuttlepod' was oddly endearing, emphasised by the faint frown of concentration that dipped between her brows. The six barbels paused briefly in their constant dancing motion, as though concentrating too.

She really was very attractive.

Chastising himself fiercely for that stray and inappropriate thought, Malcolm stepped back into the shuttlepod, which was dim and cool after the bright sunshine outside. Hoping that the act would not cause offence, but determined to ensure complete privacy for the conversation with his ship, he closed the hatch.

He seated himself at the navigation console and keyed the comms button. "Reed to _Enterprise._"

"_Enterprise _here, Lieutenant_._" Hoshi's voice answered him. "The captain told me to route you straight through to him."

That, at least, confirmed Yathai's claim that Captain Archer had been contacted. It must have taken place during the shuttle's flight down, because there was no doubt that if something this potentially serious had been mentioned in the original request he would have been briefed before leaving the ship. The captain might be slightly lax in some respects, but he wouldn't have deliberately sent one of his officers into a difficult situation unprepared. At a guess, he'd have contacted T'Pol via her communicator if the situation impacted on her in any way.

His commanding officer responded immediately, suggesting that he was in his ready room and had been waiting for the call. Malcolm instantly picked up the note of strain in his voice, which made his heart sink even further.

"Sir, I believe the Merixan Council has been in touch with you," he said evenly. "Weapons Master Yathai has just informed me that they require some kind of 'favour' from me."

In different circumstances, this occurrence would have been grounds for any number of supposedly humorous gibes at his expense. From the lack of even the faintest note of humour, it appeared that the situation was far too serious for that.

"I'm hoping it may be just a precaution, Malcolm," the captain told him. "But apparently there's some kind of 'situation' developing down there. There's a faction who've been trying to organise the overthrow of the government, and the Council have just got wind that they may be a lot closer to making their move than they thought. So they want you to go over their defensive plans and see if there are any improvements you can suggest."

Horror laid an icy hand on the back of the tactical officer's neck. Civil conflicts were something that _Enterprise _and her crew had no business whatsoever getting involved in. For one thing, although the Merixa had been kind and attentive hosts, and had given every evidence of their goodwill, that could be no more than a front. One man's rebel is another man's freedom fighter, and without sight of all the facts there is no way to make a balanced judgement as to who is which. The 'faction' against whom his expertise in defence was required could in fact be a legitimate party attempting to overthrow a despotic regime.

It appeared, however, that the captain (for whatever reason) had decided that there was valid justification for intervention. This being the case, it was not a good idea for a subordinate to argue with that decision. Nevertheless, Malcolm could not in good conscience refrain from making at least some kind of measured protest.

"Sir, with respect, perhaps we should consider investigating the situation further before offering assistance."

"If we wait too long, there won't be any 'situation' to investigate, Lieutenant," the captain replied a little sharply. "We're monitoring significant troop numbers massing down there. All I'm interested in is trying to prevent a massacre, with you two in the middle of it."

The lieutenant scowled in concern as he rapidly assessed the risks to the landing party. "Then in that case, sir, I request permission for Sub-Commander T'Pol to abandon these talks she's taking part in and return to the ship. There's no point in endangering both of us."

"Denied. Right now I'm not sure how safe the shuttle would be. We're picking up some missile activity, and I don't want you two to be a live target."

"Missiles?" said Malcolm in alarm. "What type? ICBMs? Explosive? Chemical? Nuclear?"

"Nothing actually on the move right now, but quite a few of the silos are hot. Hoshi's picked up a lot of transmissions that confirm the severity of the threat. I'll guess that having an unknown craft taking off from the council buildings might just pull somebody's itchy finger onto a trigger."

Reed shook his head, almost as if trying to shake all this information into some kind of order that made sense to him. There had been no suggestion of all this when they'd made the initial contact with the Merixa; it was a storm that had blown up out of nowhere.

"Sir, it would be helpful if I could have some guidance as to what the 'situation' consists of, and what guarantees the Merixa are offering regarding Sub-Commander T'Pol's safety." As his senior officer and a member of Starfleet, the Vulcan must be his first priority when it came to protection.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss the details, Malcolm. Your counterpart down there can fill you in with what she feels appropriate. As for T'Pol, I've asked if she can be housed in the same building as you until we have a window for evacuating you safely."

"You could transport her, sir."

"Right now, I don't want to do anything at all that would risk tripping a war off down there. At a guess the rebels are monitoring us."

_'Make like a hole in the water', in other words, _thought Malcolm. It made sense; presumably the captain was anxious to do what he could behind the scenes to stabilise the situation, hoping to offer his services by way of a mediator if both sides were willing to talk. It therefore behoved his officers planetside to keep their activities extremely well below the radar.

"I'll do whatever I can to help, sir," he said formally. "But if the situation deteriorates to the point where I judge the Sub-Commander's safety is in serious jeopardy, I'd like your permission to safeguard her in any way I deem appropriate."

"That's what I'd expect of you, Malcolm." The captain's voice gentled briefly, then returned to formality. "Keep us informed of anything you think appropriate. If it gets to the point where you believe either of you are in real danger, we'll just transport you immediately, regardless."

"Understood, sir. Reed out."

The lieutenant closed off the comm. and sat frowning thoughtfully at the console, trying to formulate a plan of action. Normally once his particular talents were called into play the time for diplomacy was over. He was not comfortable with the fact that – although it appeared events had certainly almost reached that point – his actions or lack of them might still have a bearing on the outbreak of a war, for which Starfleet could well be held partially responsible if he mucked things up down here.

Still, he had T'Pol down here with him, and the First Officer was certainly a capable diplomat; she had, after all, been serving as a member of Ambassador Soval's staff when the incident at Broken Bow precipitated _Enterprise_'s early launch. He could (and would) insist on having her present if any 'favours' even a fraction out of this remit were discussed, and without her approval as his senior officer, he would refuse to co-operate.

At length he sighed. Time was passing, and it seemed they might have little enough of it.

There was a weapons locker at the rear of the shuttlepod, with a phase pistol in it. He rose and moved to it.

As he keyed in his code he remembered how he'd insisted on having one installed in both craft after that near escape he and Trip had had from freezing to death in this one when they'd mistakenly thought _Enterprise _lost with all hands. If they'd had weapons on board, they would have had an independent power source that could have provided them with warmth; on the high setting, they could have heated up non-vital parts of the 'pod to help fight off the murderous cold eating its way in from the hard vacuum outside. Unsurprisingly, following his train of thought without difficulty even before he'd explained it, the chief engineer had put his staff on to it at once.

And besides, it never hurt to be prepared...

Weapons Master Yathai was still waiting patiently outside when the gull-wing door of the shuttlepod lifted. She had not moved a muscle, as far as he could tell. Her expression was completely neutral, though he didn't miss the single glance that flickered to the phase pistol now hanging at his hip. As an energy weapon it would of necessity be more sophisticated than the one she possessed. He knew – because in her shoes he'd have felt exactly the same – that that glance would have engendered a fierce curiosity to examine it more closely and learn its secrets. A curiosity that he'd have to forestall if necessary.

"It seems I am to co-operate with you in a defensive capacity, Weapons Master," he said drily, placing slight emphasis on the 'defensive'.

"It is our understanding that your world has much experience in such matters as technological armed conflict, Lieutenant," she commented as they began walking into the council buildings.

"So much so that we very nearly destroyed ourselves with it," he answered. "I'd like to think your world could benefit from our mistakes instead of emulating them."

"I too would like to think so." Her neck bent slowly. "But in the meantime, we must be prepared to defend what we hold dear."

He said nothing, in reply to that. It was the summary of his own ethos; he could hardly sit in judgement on another person for espousing it.

Considering the apparent gravity of the situation, the building was quiet. Its corridors were high, light and cool; tall arched windows pierced the outer walls, giving it something of the feeling of a cathedral. Beautiful and elegant, he thought, but hardly defensible. He hoped it wouldn't come to trying to hold this place against an attacking force; there were far too many points of entry and far too few situations where defensive emplacements could be set up.

At one corner there was what looked like a large birdcage. The four creatures in it appeared to be winged, but their elongated necks made them look like tiny, feathered dinosaurs in shades of cream and gold. The word _Archaeopteryx_ floated into his mind. He expected to walk past without pausing, but Yathai stopped and opened the cage door, pushing it wide.

"It is not right to keep living things imprisoned so that they may die," she said softly.

Three of the creatures swarmed out immediately. They were evidently tame, for they clambered on to her arm and clung there, piping odd, fluting calls.

"No. Fly free." She thrust her arm high, dislodging them. "Go back to the forest, and live."

They fluttered up towards the ceiling. Perhaps it was his imagination that their calls seemed bewildered rather than ecstatic.

The fourth and smallest creature scrambled into the open cage doorway and hesitated there. Its open mouth was the colour of lemons, its tongue a flicker of scarlet. Its plumage was creamy, overlaid with a sheen of luminous blue where the light caught it at a certain angle.

Yathai had turned away.

"Come on, little 'un." His companion's words had disquieted him. It sounded far too much as though she expected everyone and everything in the building to perish; and he had a fellow-feeling for the runt of any litter. It wouldn't take him a moment to encourage this last little archaeopteryx out of the cage so it could seek its freedom with the others; though he deliberately blanked the knowledge that back on Earth, escaping cage-birds have little chance of survival outside. Little, after all, was better than none.

He put a hand somewhat tentatively up to the cage door, as Yathai had done. It took some effort not to jerk it back as the creature jumped on to his arm and ran up it to his shoulder, hanging on to his uniform with tiny curving claws.

It sat there for some ten seconds, staring at him, its wings half-extended. Close up, its eyes were larger than those of a bird of a comparable size, and its head resembled that of a lizard rather than a bird, making him think of it a little whimsically as a miniature, feathered dragon. The head rotated once, as though its owner was trying to understand what he was; and then, almost too quickly for the eye to follow, the beast took off after its companions, who were fluttering against the closed windows, piping piteously.

"We must go," said Yathai shortly, turning back as she noticed he had not followed immediately. "Someone will let them out. We have no time to waste."

He said nothing, but nodded and followed her. His face was a mask, hiding his thoughts; but behind it, incredulity and wonder were now added to the steady stream of his professional calculations.

As the creature had launched itself away from him, he had received a single pulse of thought that he could only believe had come directly from it. One burst of emotion, that resolved itself in his brain as though the creature had screamed a single command.

_"Run!"_


	3. Chapter 3

Yathai led him to what was evidently a planning room. It did not appear to have been built for that specific purpose, but to have been hurriedly converted. Banks of computers around the walls were analysing and displaying data, and several persons whom he assumed were her underlings were scurrying around monitoring developments. All women; perhaps the male sex on this world took no interest in defensive matters (a singularly strange thought to him), or were not allowed to become involved in such important issues.

One of these, catching sight of her, came hurrying over, sketching an odd scooping gesture with her left hand that seemed to be the Merixan equivalent of a salute. "No activity as yet, Weapons Master."

"Remain vigilant. I think it is only a matter of time." She drew Malcolm over to what was obviously a large table display, similar to the one in _Enterprise_'s Situation Room. "I have drawn up diagrams of our defences, Lieutenant, and would be grateful for your opinion. And for any suggestions you may have for improving them."

"Where is Sub-Commander T'Pol? The captain gave me to understand she'd be remaining with me." He cast the first assessing glance over the display. He'd need to ask a lot of questions before he understood all the information properly; naturally the icons were Merixan glyphs, so Hoshi's presence would have been useful too. Not that he was anything but thankful the ship's communications expert was still safely on board – one fewer responsibility for him to shoulder if things did kick off down here. Still, even if T'Pol wasn't in anything like Hoshi's league as far as languages went, the Vulcan's keen intelligence would certainly be an asset, and there was nobody he'd feel safer for having at his back in a crisis. The term _good team _might have felt a little presumptuous, but it was one he'd rather like to be able to use.

And, of course, if he was responsible for her safety, ensuring that would be a whole lot easier if they were actually in the same room.

"She will be with us shortly." Yathai leaned over the table to press an icon at the far side of it, causing another fleeting inappropriate thought to cross his mind. He dismissed it, angry at himself for his lack of professionalism; this was no time to be thinking _'awfully nice!' _Although at the same time he had managed to get quite a good look at the handgun too. It appeared to very professionally designed, and no amateur's toy. For a projectile weapon, it probably had a long range and high accuracy. In different circumstances he'd have liked to ask if he might try it, but even apart from the fact that there were far more urgent issues at hand, she would undoubtedly have asked to be allowed to try out his phase pistol in return; and he couldn't risk the offence that a refusal would cause.

The display changed. Without difficulty he recognised the layout of Bai, the capital city in which the council buildings were situated. A huge road bisected the city like the stroke of a sword, with six other roads, almost as large, leading around each half in perfect semi-circles. It had been designed for elegance, and the landing party had duly admired it the day before as the shuttlepod had approached. 'Elegance', however, had nothing in particular to say to 'defensibility'. The city didn't even have any gates. Any attacking force could penetrate it in numbers with ease. He frowned, trying to calculate the best places for defensive positions to be set up.

His first priority, however, was to discover what form any expected attack would be likely to take. It would be futile to muster ground troops if the first stage of hostilities would be the release of missiles from the silos the captain had mentioned. Above all, it mattered what type of warhead these would be carrying. If they were simple explosives, the situation might not be irretrievable. If they were chemical or, still worse, nuclear...

He shut his eyes briefly. Memories from a time before his life on _Enterprise _rose unbidden, unwanted, sickening in their vividness even now.

His voice was cool and face devoid of emotion as he began questioning his Merixan counterpart as to weapons capabilities, air defences and troop strengths and locations. He studied maps that showed him everything from geology to political affiliation to supply lines and logistics. Yathai answered every question promptly and fully, her tone as formal as his own, and slowly he began to build up a picture in his own mind of how any conflict that might begin was likely to run, and various ways in which casualties could be mitigated. Because his training included it, he also saw various opportunities in which events could be used to advantage – some of them probably great enough to end the fighting decisively. But the captain's orders had been specific. He was to help the Merixa fight a defensive war, not an aggressive one.

It soon became clear that although space flight had obviously been a priority in their technological development, as far as armaments went the Merixa were about on a par with Earth in the mid twentieth century. Covering the major issue first – what sort of opening attack he should expect 'the enemy' to make – Malcolm demanded information about the missiles secreted in the silos _Enterprise _was monitoring. The reply was not entirely reassuring. The Merixa had discovered nuclear fission, but Yathai said that experimentation with it had been banned. Nevertheless, something about her tone suggested that she was not quite as certain as she would have liked to be that the ban had been observed. Reed found that rather hard to believe – there were quite sophisticated observation satellites in orbit, and nuclear weapons testing was not, after all, an event that could be easily hidden – but pressed on to the second worst alternative. Chemical or biological weapons? She thought not. But that, again, was not entirely out of the question. And this one, if he was any judge, worried her considerably more than the nuclear possibility for some reason.

High explosives were definitely _in _the frame, however. Yathai thought on balance that the missiles were likely to be simple, if highly destructive. They were unlikely to be aimed at civilian populations, but rather used to eliminate armed resistance capability before the second wave of the assault began.

The lieutenant glanced at his chronometer at this point. Well over two hours had passed, and T'Pol had not arrived.

"It is almost time to eat, Lieutenant. Your officer will doubtless join us then." His companion had obviously noticed the gesture and understood his resultant frown.

He glanced at her. Insofar as he could read Merixan physiology, her expression appeared sincere; but then, he had the best of reasons to know that expressions can lie.

Thoughtfully, confident by this time with the controls of the display table, he switched to the layout map of Bai, with its huge single road cut diametrically through it and the six ring roads forming a perfect echo of the island in the centre where the council buildings lay like a bull's-eye. _Not exactly hard to miss, as a target, _he thought grimly. _About the only thing they could do to make things easier for the enemy is paint it red._

"Have you reached any conclusions, Lieutenant?" Yathai asked.

"Some, certainly, ma'am," he replied. "Most of the dispositions you've already made are textbook. I might be able to suggest some possibilities for strengthening them, though." He took a deep breath; what he had to say next might not go down too well. "But my main concern, with respect, is that in my experience the biggest problem with 'textbook' defences is that your enemy has the same textbook to read from. He may anticipate your defences and find some way to circumnavigate them. If I may suggest it, some additional rather _less _orthodox defensive precautions might prove an advantage."

"We would be most grateful for any suggestions you might make," she said frankly. "We are not accustomed to war. We never dreamed that it would actually come to this. But now it has, we must win it or die."

Malcolm looked at her searchingly. It was too easy for him to envisage those lovely slender bones of her face crushed by blast injuries, the flesh of her body pulverised by a percussion wave or incinerated by thermal radiation. If nuclear weapons were part of the plan, nothing was more likely than that the first one would go off above this council building. Bai and everything for miles around it would disappear in the blink of an eye, consumed by a fireball hotter than the core of the star presently standing high in the blue sky outside.

With luck and foresight, he and T'Pol would not be in it if and when that happened. But too many people in that city outside would have no time or means of escape. Doubtless evacuation plans were in place, but in his experience such things rarely ran smoothly. Panicking people became selfish, savage and ultimately uncontrollable.

"With respect, ma'am, it hasn't come to it yet," he said, his voice low and rapid so that her underlings would not be able to make out the words. "You haven't seen what conflict on this scale looks like. You think you can imagine it. Believe me, you can't. All those people out there, innocent people, going about their lives ... they're all going to die. All of them. Some of them quickly, some of them slowly and horribly. Whatever this is about, I'm asking you, I'm _begging _you, to use any influence you may have with the Council to stop this before it starts. Keep talking. Keep negotiating. I'm certain Captain Archer would agree to mediate, if you asked him. Otherwise..." A long-gone voice echoed in his head, so clearly that Pard might have been standing behind his shoulder. _'Damned fools kept fightin' till they both lost.'_

Yathai gazed at him for a moment, so that he wondered whether he'd overstepped his bounds; after all, he'd been asked to provide tactical advice, not political. But then she shook her head slowly.

"We did not want this war, Lieutenant. We still do not. But our enemy wishes to overthrow our whole way of life. They hate us so much that there is no middle ground left to stand on. We can either fight, or cease to exist."

"I believe that the Weapons Master has summed up the situation quite accurately." A cool voice spoke behind him, and he turned to see T'Pol walking towards him, with First Minister Hirgev just behind her. "The Merixa have been fighting on these grounds for centuries. Neither side will admit defeat. They are locked in what I believe Humans would describe as a 'see-saw of aggression'."

Malcolm looked back at Yathai. "Every see-saw has a pivot, ma'am," he said a little desperately. It was nothing, he was sure, that T'Pol would not have said already, and far more eloquently; but his despair at the looming conflict was exacerbated almost beyond endurance by the sight of Hirgev's abdomen, swollen in the late stages of pregnancy. "There's always a point where opposing forces balance. It only needs the goodwill to look for it."

The Weapons Master, however, was no longer looking at him, and probably no longer listening either. She was walking towards Hirgev, and both women's hands were flickering with that sign-language of emotion.

He probably should not have been surprised, therefore, when the two of them reached each other and began kissing passionately. Colour rushed up into his face, and feeling like every sort of a voyeur he transferred his gaze hurriedly back to the table in front of him. Maybe things were different on this world, but back on Earth a display like that would have distinct connotations of a relationship that was none of his business whatsoever.

T'Pol joined him. The faint waft of the familiar spicy perfume hanging about her robes was reassuring, and obscurely helped to steady him, for all that in her role as a representative of Vulcan she seemed even more distant than usual. He shot a glance at her, hoping against hope that she might have some shred of an idea for some way to avert the tragedy to come; maybe if the Merixa were so set upon establishing good relations with both Earth and Vulcan, they might realise that starting a civil war was not the best way to advertise themselves. Vulcan, in particular, would abhor the illogicality of it, for all that they'd had their own share of internecine warfare back in the bloodier eras of their history.

"We must be able to talk them out of this, Sub-commander," he said in a low voice. "As strangers, representatives of an unbiased species ... I'm sure the captain would be more than happy to mediate. Perhaps we could contact the enemy, introduce ourselves, make the offer..."

"I have already suggested it, Lieutenant." Her level voice was touched with something akin to regret. "I have had no success. The two sides are too deeply entrenched."

"Maybe the Government are. But maybe they've stopped talking. If _we_ could get involved, maybe we could make some kind of a breakthrough..." He drew a deep breath. "Would it seriously endanger our relations with the Merixa if we made approaches to the enemy?"

The Vulcan looked back at him for a long moment, her face unreadable. "I do not think that would be wise."

"_'Wise'?_" For all his discipline, Malcolm couldn't completely control his reaction of incredulous anger. "Sub-commander, you know as well as I do that this is going to end in tragedy. If this conflict has been going on for as long as you say, the only reason why there are still people alive on this planet is that they haven't actually fought since they've discovered how to split the atom. Now that they have, it's not going to be just a question of casualties. It's going to be what sort of a world they'll have left afterwards, whether they'll still be genetically viable. You know that as well as I do. Surely, anything that might help prevent that would be welcome!" He snatched a quick, embarrassed glance at the women, who were now holding each other and talking in low voices, and pitched his own voice too low for them to hear. "Do we have any information about who the enemy _are? _What these people are actually fighting _about?_"

"Yes. The Council explained their position quite fully." T'Pol seemed reluctant to pursue the matter, however, and he controlled a rush of irritation.

"Sub-commander, we may not be able to leave this planet before this war of theirs actually breaks out. I realise there's obviously some big secret about all this, but I have Starfleet security clearance at the highest levels. I do know how to keep my mouth shut. And if there's a possibility I'm going to die in a conflict, I think it would only be polite for me to at least know what I'm going to die _for_."

The Vulcan sighed. "You make a valid point. I suppose in fairness, I ought to explain more clearly." She had been staring at the map of Bai, but now lifted her head and looked directly at him. "Our position here is ... difficult, Lieutenant. Because _you _are one of the enemy."


	4. Chapter 4

_"I _am?_" _He took a step back, unable to believe his ears. "Is this some kind of a joke?"

"Unfortunately, the situation is entirely without humor. For the Merixa, what I believe you Humans refer to as 'the war between the sexes' is a literal fact. For centuries the two genders have been in conflict over which of them should hold power over the other. As far as they are concerned, there is no middle ground possible. They rule, or they are ruled. And for the past hundred years, the women have been in the ascendancy. That fact may be about to change."

"So what the hell did they want me here for?" It was hardly the correct way to address a superior officer, but the lieutenant was too shocked to think of that for a moment. His mind was frantically trying to reassess the situation in light of this astonishing development.

It certainly explained Captain Archer's decision that his tactical officer should render defensive assistance to the current Government. The Merixa had asked him for help, and although he could not take any action that would instigate a conflict or give either side an advantage, he'd undoubtedly felt that allowing a town full of women to fall to predatory male aggressors was something he could not in conscience permit to happen if he could help it.

"They would naturally have preferred it if our Tactical Officer had been female," T'Pol was saying. "That said, they have promised to respect you as a non-combatant."

Malcolm frowned. Something didn't fit. "But that reception yesterday ... there were men there, and they seemed happy enough. Surely..."

"There are always collaborators in a war, Lieutenant. They may not be well respected, but they are well rewarded."

"And trusted?"

"Not entirely. There is a price for acceptance." She paused. "The common jest is apparently that men are good for only two things: recreation and procreation. Any man who desires power must forego procreation."

_Bloody hell. _It was physically impossible to blush and go pale at the same time, but it just _had _to be T'Pol he was having this conversation with. He resisted the instinctive urge to step forward and protect his procreative options by pressing the organs in question firmly against the table in case anyone got any ideas about recruiting _him_.

Just as well Starfleet didn't apply similar promotional policies, he thought, with a brief flash of irreverence. It'd play hell with recruitment.

"I should imagine this would put an end to any chance of friendly relations with Starfleet or Vulcan," he remarked, almost at random.

"For the present, I would imagine so. At some point in the future, who knows? Perhaps if they survive they will have learned wisdom from the experience."

"Hmm. 'Make a desert and call it peace', in other words." He thought back over what Yathai had said. How he'd assumed her statements that her people were 'not accustomed to war' and 'never dreamed that it would actually come to this' meant that the Merixa were an inherently peaceful people who'd found themselves caught up in an unsought war. What she'd actually meant was that 'her side' – the women's side – had thought they had The Enemy so securely under control that the long war was effectively over.

But they hadn't. And it wasn't.

An enemy who could prepare for war on such a scale with such skill and stealth that the other side didn't even know they were doing so until the start of it was practically upon them posed a _very _serious threat. At a guess, since it was unthinkable that any undertaking so massive as the construction of even a single weapons silo could have taken place unnoticed, there had been some kind of co-ordinated coup to bring about a takeover of the control of at least some of those already in existence. Yathai had indicated those now hostile to the Government. Given that kind of organisational power and determination, it was more than likely that one way or the other, the balance of power was indeed about to change.

Maybe his intervention was a good thing. Maybe if the two sides were more evenly balanced, someone somewhere would finally decide they had no option but to start talking. Practically every other species managed to maintain some kind of a balance that made life liveable, so surely with a little give and take on both sides here something of the sort could be achieved. How the hell did they get around to 'procreating' if there was this degree of animosity between the sexes? The only answer to that question was one that hinted at still darker areas on the underbelly to the civilisation that had seemed so idyllic only the day before.

Their hosts' low-voiced discussion had come to an end. The two women walked towards the display table and the two visitors waiting for them there.

"We will eat with you," said Hirgev, coming to a halt perhaps a metre short of them. "We are grateful for your coming here."

"We would be even more grateful for your hospitality if it had not been offered under false pretences, First Minister," replied T'Pol coolly.

Hirgev, a statuesque brunette with eyes that were a somewhat unnerving shade of jade, was apparently undisturbed by the retort. "There was nothing false in our wish to establish friendly relations with other worlds, Sub-commander. We still hope that it may be possible."

"As I have already explained, and at length, as things stand it will almost certainly not be possible. Vulcan will perceive no logic in establishing relations with a species so determined upon self-annihilation. For whether you admit it to yourselves or not, that is the road down which you are traveling."

"We will hope that with the assistance of your Lieutenant Reed we may yet prevent that from happening." Yathai looked at him, and seemed to become aware that his attitude had changed. She frowned slightly.

"I could wish that my efforts were in a more worthy cause, ma'am," he said stiffly.

"You call safeguarding _this _'not worthy'?" Hirgev put a hand on her swollen abdomen, and looked angry. "You would rather that we were all left to the mercy of that army of _hiu'eriwa _waiting to turn us all into slaves?"

"I imagine that what the lieutenant means is that his talents would be better employed in attempting to arrange circumstances where a truce might be established, and, following that, a meaningful dialogue," T'Pol interposed. "He undoubtedly feels, as do I, that all he has done today is to prolong a state of affairs that is in the interest of neither party. I must admit that I am completely at a loss to understand the logic of your proceedings. War is not, and never will be, a means to a just and long-lasting solution."

"It is in itself the only possible solution," said Hirgev flatly. "He feels no sympathy for us, because in his heart of hearts he belongs out there with the enemy. All men are the same. Even those of Earth, it seems."

Malcolm drew in an outraged breath, and felt T'Pol's hand come to rest lightly on his arm. He said nothing, but when the Vulcan spoke her voice was as cold as he had ever heard it. "I absolutely refute that accusation on my officer's behalf. I have no doubt whatsoever that he will do everything in his power to make your defenses as strong as they possibly can be. And I have no doubt either that his sympathies, like mine, lie with neither side, but with the casualties that this war will inflict on the innocent of _both _sides."

The First Minister shrugged, but her attitude said that she doubted it.

A meal had been prepared for them in the adjoining room, laid out on a snow-white cloth. For his part, Malcolm felt little appetite for it, particularly since it seemed that First Minister Hirgev was determined to eat with them even after her declaration of enmity to him. Nevertheless it was obviously impossible to decline, so he made up his mind to maintain an attitude of the utmost and most unbending formality, even avoiding speech if it was possible to do so.

The Merixa had evidently noted, either from the database the ship had supplied or from her behaviour the previous day, that Vulcans do not touch food with the hands. Although the meal mostly comprised buffet-type foods, additional eating implements had been provided for her. Reed looked around for any that might have been provided for him before realising wryly that, although spoons had been set out, Hirgev probably didn't trust him with a knife. It was a source of some wonder that she hadn't ordered him to be disarmed before permitting him to be in Yathai's presence all afternoon; if he had indeed been 'one of the enemy', it would have provided him with a gilt-edged invitation to shoot her with his phase pistol.

The circumstances being what they were, small talk was going to be difficult, and Malcolm certainly wasn't going to initiate it. He was aware from things Trip had occasionally mentioned in passing about meals the engineer had shared with T'Pol and the captain that their resident Vulcan was not the world's most incurable conversationalist, for all that she'd once piqued the two men's interest most thoroughly with some implausible story about a 'pre-Bozeman' Vulcan visit to Earth. So on all counts it seemed likely to be a rather silent meal.

His expectations were proved correct. He was glad to be spared any more snipes from Hirgev; although he was aware of Yathai's eyes resting on him occasionally, he deliberately avoided meeting them. He had no wish to provide the other woman with any grounds whatsoever on which to accuse him of ungentlemanly behaviour – if not worse.

Ever since discovering that he was, to all intents and purposes, numbered among the enemy here (for all his attempts to protect them from 'his own side'), the sense of wariness had prickled more fiercely than ever at the back of his neck. It certainly seemed to explain the warning that the little archaeopteryx had flung at him. He wished heartily that they could receive permission from Captain Archer to leave immediately; as soon as it came, he and T'Pol would head for the shuttlepod and go, and leave these people to get on with their sorry little war if they were utterly determined to do so. Although not in the same class as Travis or Captain Archer as a pilot, or even probably Trip, he had a reasonable confidence in his ability to dodge missile fire in the 'pod if it became necessary.

Perhaps half the meal passed before Yathai spoke. "We think it likely that hostilities will begin early tomorrow," she said. "I shall address my seconds this evening. Lieutenant Reed, I would be grateful if you would feel able to accompany me in case any of them require any clarification of the ideas you have put forward."

Malcolm glanced at T'Pol. An infinitesimal nod gave permission, though her face was a stoic mask.

He turned back to face Yathai. "I'll give you any help I possibly can, Weapons Master," he said neutrally. "But I must ask you if any arrangements have been made to allow Sub-Commander T'Pol to return in safety to the ship if your expectations prove inaccurate."

"I will return in your company, Lieutenant," T'Pol informed him, pausing in the consumption of what seemed to be some kind of thick vegetable soup. "As your senior officer, it would be inappropriate for me to seek safety while yours was still in doubt."

He drew a breath to argue, and let it out again. It was bad discipline to contest an order from a superior, and he knew quite well that T'Pol was in the right and would not reconsider.

"You need not fear for his safety, Sub-commander," said Hirgev viciously. "A man will always look to his own skin."

The Vulcan quietly laid down her spoon. "I find that my appetite has deserted me," she remarked. "Please convey my apologies to whoever prepared the meal."

"The food is not to your liking?" asked the First Minister, clearly surprised.

"The food is excellent," answered T'Pol, rising. "It is the company I find objectionable. Lieutenant, if you will?"

Malcolm risked a glance at Yathai as he also rose. It was hard for him to be certain, but she appeared to be somewhat discomfited by developments. Imagining his own mortification if a lover of his had behaved with such crassness, he felt a rush of sympathy for her.

"If you still want me to attend the briefing, Ma'am, I'm perfectly willing," he said to her in a low voice before following his superior officer from the room.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. I will send for you," she replied softly, just before the door closed between them.

Fortunately T'Pol had been shown the adjoining rooms that had been provided for their use. Out of habit, he checked both of them. These were as simple as a monastic cell but neat and spotlessly clean, each containing a single bed, a chair, and a low clothes-chest. A tiny annexe room to each contained what were obviously shower and toilet facilities. His scanner detected no listening devices or anything else of a sinister nature.

There was an interconnecting door, but it was locked. He experimented for a few moments with trying to break the code, but gave up, shrugging. It would be something for him to work on later. His skills must be getting a bit rusty.

"Stand aside, Mister Reed."

He looked around in surprise, and then complied in a hurry. Those ceremonial Vulcan robes obviously contained a repository for a weapon, and the owner thereof had drawn it and was pointing it at the lock. A second or two later, there was no longer a problem with the interconnecting door separating them in an emergency.

T'Pol pushed the door open. "Unless you have any objections, I think it advisable for this to remain open until we leave," she said.

"None at all, Sub-commander." He'd been wondering how to suggest that very same thing. Normally he and T'Pol were both extremely private people, but in the circumstances he was beginning to think it might be an idea for him to drag the mattress in from one of the beds and lay it on the floor alongside the other so that he could sleep on it. Had it been any other member of the ship's personnel than T'Pol he'd have insisted on doing so, but she was at least as able as he was to defend herself. And besides, given that it was he who was cast, however unjustly, in the role of 'the bad guy' (as Trip would have quaintly expressed it), it was probably actually safer for T'Pol if he was not in close proximity to her.

The petite Vulcan stalked into the other room. "I find myself in need of a period of mediation," she announced. "I would suggest that you rest before the briefing, Lieutenant. I apologize if you are still hungry."

Malcolm sat down a little wearily on the bed, noticing once again how the slightly lower gravity seemed to make it just a fraction slower to do, although he was becoming used to that; walking was not a problem, as he was once again wearing the weighted boots. "I didn't have much appetite to begin with."

A smile flitted across his face as he lay back. For all that Vulcans famously eschewed emotion, Captain Archer himself couldn't have bettered that display of ire at a junior officer being insulted.

He had little concrete idea of T'Pol's opinion of him; she was not in his chain of command, except insofar as she was the ship's 2IC (even now the Royal Navy term came more easily to his mind than Starfleet's 'XO'). Her outspoken defence of him was warmth in a world that he had begun to find distinctly chilly. At a guess, thanking her for it would only have elicited some tart response containing the word 'illogical' somewhere, but nevertheless he was grateful.

He suspected that meditation would require peace and quiet, so he made no attempt at conversation, but turned over, pulled the single woollen blanket over himself (more for its psychological effects than any real need of the warmth it provided) and fell into a light doze. He'd learned long ago to take rest when he could get it. After the briefing he'd contact the ship, if T'Pol had not done so already, and update the captain on their status. The fact that they had heard nothing in the meantime did not particularly worry him; if the ship was trying to remain relatively 'invisible' and keep their landing party similarly so, a lack of contact would be normal.

* * *

At a guess perhaps an hour had passed before a tap on the door heralded Yathai's return. He woke at once, and having responded to the Weapons Master he moved to the doorway that separated his room from T'Pol's.

The Vulcan was seated on her bed, cross-legged and motionless, but she opened her eyes when he appeared.

"The briefing's about to start, Sub-commander," he said quietly. "It's apparently taking place only fifty metres away down the corridor from here, on the right. I believe that falls within an acceptable distance of separation in the circumstances. If there is any alarm I'll return here immediately."

She inclined her head. "I shall await your return."

* * *

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	5. Chapter 5

Hirgev was nowhere in sight during the briefing, for which Malcolm was thankful. Nevertheless, it soon became apparent that his advice was received with some suspicion by the fifteen or so of Yathai's subordinates gathered in the room, for he was closely questioned on various aspects of it, and not always with total civility. Yathai invariably acted to bring her juniors to heel when this attitude became too marked, but it was still not a comfortable couple of hours for him, and he was glad when it was finally over and the last of them left, with obeisances to Yathai and mostly muttered thanks to him.

Outside, the sun had set, ending the short Javnan day – considerably shorter than one of Earth's, owing to the planet's more rapid rotation. Through one of the tall glass windows he could see the slender sickle of one of the planet's three moons.

"I am sorry, Lieutenant," said his companion when they were alone again. "Some of them are very young. They do not know how to deal with the fact that they will die tomorrow."

He leaned on the pedestal at which Yathai had stood to speak. He stared at his hands, seeing them clenched into fists.

"Weapons Master, this can still be prevented. Maybe. At least let somebody _try. _The _Enterprise – _Captain Archer..."

"It is not possible. I am sorry." She was standing beside him, tall and straight and slender and lovely, looking death in the face. "It is all we know."

After a moment she walked to a side table. A tray was set out on it, with two glasses. "I would be pleased if you would drink with me. A toast to the success of our plans."

He stiffened. Duty, however distasteful, was nevertheless inescapable.

"I'm sorry, Weapons Master. I'm not allowed to drink while I'm on duty."

Her fingers paused on the glasses. When she turned around again, her green eyes were sad. "I should have realised that. I have put you in a difficult position. I am also sorry." She looked around, a little blindly he thought, at the room: not a large place, containing only the chairs on which the staff officers had been seated and another table on which stood a carafe of water and the tumblers for it, some of which had evidently been used. "I understand too that you cannot wish one side or another success."

"I can wish you luck, ma'am," he said quietly.

She moved to the second table, selected a clean glass and poured water into it from the carafe. Then, picking up one of the wine glasses, she came back to Malcolm, carrying both.

"Then at the least we can drink to that?" she asked, offering him the glass of water.

He searched her face. After tonight he would not see it again. He knew that she at least believed that today's sunset had been the last she would ever see. She was probably right.

Her skin was flawless. Her eyes were emerald pools, calling him to drown. Even the barbels along her cheekbones reminded him of the stamens of an orchid, motionless as though waiting for his response.

And tomorrow she was going to die.

He accepted the glass.

The wine glass and the tumbler chinked gently. The sound was loud in the quiet.

They both drank; he lightly – though the water was still quite fresh and cold – and she deeply. Drops of the wine stood on her lips when she had finished, emphasising their glossy amber beauty.

"I will take you back to your room now," she said softly.

Too many thoughts tumbled through his mind as they made the short walk back down the corridor. Most of them were quite unbefitting a Starfleet officer, although he knew that none of them would have shown on his face. Desire warred with sorrow, and both choked him with regret, because in another moment or two both he and she would utter some commonplace platitudes and she would walk away, and the chances were that on the morrow some underling would have the duty of escorting him and T'Pol to the waiting shuttle, to take their best chances of escape.

As for her survival of what followed?

The chances were slim. And even if she somehow survived the war, the chances of her surviving the peace were even slimmer.

He would probably never know.

They reached the door, and stopped. He drew a deep breath, and turned towards her, realising that as a Starfleet officer he had to take refuge in formality. But it was a waste; dear God, it was a waste.

Her lips were incredibly soft. The barbels touched his skin, firing off tiny charges of delight there. The sensation grew and spread through his body, stunning him with its potency.

His hands went around her waist without will.

_Conduct unbecoming..._

He groaned aloud.

Her mouth swallowed the sound, suffocating it.

* * *

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	6. Chapter 6

The sound of the ceremonial gongs woke them just before dawn.

T'Pol sat up, and pressed her fingers to her head. For some reason, she had a singularly severe headache, though she appeared to have slept very deeply.Perhaps the lack of a candle upon which to center her daily meditation the night before had affected her more than she had realized.

Lieutenant Reed appeared in the doorway. He looked heavy-eyed and rumpled, in contrast to his customary neatness, but seemed alert enough. "Time to go, Sub-commander," he said briefly. "I'm afraid the time for talking's over."

"There never was any," she responded. "This will go on, because both sides want it to. It is a pity."

Nobody came to summon them. They had already been informed that the gongs would sound when the war started, a part of the long sorry tradition. Work had needed to be undertaken hurriedly to ensure that the great brass plates would not fall from their mountings when struck, because over the years their supports had perished so much that it was not impossible that one hard blow would make them disintegrate.

No-one had expected the war.

There was much coming and going through the dim, lamplit corridors as the two of them emerged. Mostly the discipline seemed to be holding; although naturally apprehensive, the Merixa had evidently had enough time to make their plans and to make their peace with whatever deity in which they believed. T'Pol noted with approval that they maintained their dignity. Their elongated, careful strides were a little more hurried, but there was no outcry.

The lieutenant hesitated for a moment in the corridor, looking to left and right, but then shook his head and began heading rapidly for the courtyard. He had drawn his phase pistol, though he held it low. He, too, could doubtless hear the dull thud of heavy artillery, for the present hardly more than a faint rumble behind the constant clamor of the gongs. So far, there had been no vibration to indicate hits in the city; possibly the artillery belonged to the defenders. So far. She was under no illusion that this state of affairs would last.

Waste was utterly without logic, and many lives would be wasted this day.

She drew her own weapon, and hurried beside him. She was aware – and he was undoubtedly aware of it too – that in a city now finally at war, he was one of The Enemy.

Others of The Enemy had already been disposed of. Here and there, bodies lay in the corridor, abandoned as carelessly as heaps of discarded clothing. Collaborators may be rewarded, but they are not trusted – and certainly not when their own kind are at the door, and there may be a chance of buying forgiveness with an act of helpful treachery.

To be sure, Lieutenant Reed had been promised safety, recognized as a non-combatant. It was not immediately obvious how widely that promise had been promulgated, and certainly more than one passer-by scowled menacingly at him, but was deterred by the threat of two steadily leveled phase pistols. At one point they heard the measured tread of a large number of highly organized individuals approaching down one corridor that adjoined their own.

"Soldiers," mouthed the lieutenant, indicating a nearby door. Fortunately this was open, and the two of them hurriedly slipped through it. The room beyond was empty. Somebody had been arranging flowers in there, and the discarded blooms lay on the table, with one or two standing forlornly in the vase for which they had been intended. A lamp on a shelf illuminated the scene with a soft gleam, its flame fluttering in the draft from an open window, letting in the dawn wind.

The footsteps turned right and passed, fading away into the distance. Reed listened to them go, his face hard with concentration.

The return of something like silence beckoned them out. There was not far to go to the courtyard now, and only one or two more Merixa padded past, hissing malevolence at The Enemy who had done nothing to save them. A small flock of winged creatures fluttered out of a cage, their calls painfully shrill to Vulcan hearing; it was uncertain why they had been in there, since the door stood open, but perhaps they had been bred in captivity and regarded the cage as home. One of them attached itself to the left shoulder of the lieutenant's uniform, squeaking, doubtless expecting some gesture of affection to which the creatures were accustomed from passers-by. The others flapped wildly around the corridor, adding to the confusion.

Reed sighed. "She said someone would let you out," he said obscurely. "Come on. Out. But I can't take you with us. You'd probably eat Phlox's bat."

T'Pol thought he was probably right, but this was not the time to worry about pets. Humans, she reflected, were sometimes very illogical indeed about priorities. She had always felt that Lieutenant Reed was better than most in this respect, but the Vulcan database had mentioned that the English were particularly inclined towards helping animals in distress. It appeared that the ship's tactical officer shared this particular fallibility.

They reached the door to the courtyard. The lieutenant's feathered passenger had now wrapped itself around his neck, but was mercifully silent. The rest of the flock attached themselves to an ornate lamp-stand and clung there for a moment, quarreling and cheeping, before taking off again and flying back in the direction of the cage. For these too, it seemed, conditioning was too strong to resist.

The scanner, brought into play, revealed that the Starfleet officers' escape-vehicle had been seized upon as the site for an ambush. Several people were in hiding around it, waiting for the fleeing male miscreant to emerge and make a run for it.

Captain Archer had told her during their final communication the night before that should their safety be in doubt, he would transport her and the lieutenant back to the ship. This, however, would leave the shuttlepod in the hands of the Merixa, with all its technology intact – including that of its weaponry. It was their plain duty not to allow that to happen. Making their escape in it would cover every requirement, though the attempt would undoubtedly be risky.

Very goddamn risky, as Chief Engineer Charles Tucker would probably express it. But the attempt had to be made.

Gesturing her companion to remain hidden, T'Pol opened the door. Light from the lamps set around the courtyard illuminated her perfectly. She was in no danger, as yet.

As she walked up to the shuttlepod, two Merixa emerged from the shrubbery. "Your officer," they hissed. "He has betrayed us. He will die."

"Would I be leaving alone if he was alive?" The Vulcan spoke indifferently. "He would not have allowed it. But as far as the ship is concerned, it is not important. He was expendable."

They were visibly nervous of her. Their barbels danced wildly. "This is the truth?"

T'Pol gestured behind her. "He is in there. See for yourselves."

Uncertain glances were exchanged, but her tone must have carried conviction. The two Merixa turned towards the doorway, plainly intent on viewing The Enemy's body for reasons of their own.

It was Vulcan practice to study all the details of a new species very carefully, even down to the details of their physiology. It was gratifying that the Merixa, too, had ultra-sensitive pressure points at the base of the neck, though she had to adapt the technique just a little, because these were not in precisely the same place as the other beings she had used it on.

Unfortunately, the other three would-be ambushers were forewarned by the incident. It appeared, however, that they were not military personnel. They were not nearly good enough at evading detection, although she was pleased that the phase pistol had a stun setting, unlike the natives' weapons. She was just about to close on the last of them when a beam lancing out from behind the shuttlepod's nose did the job for her, sending the last Merix sprawling unconscious. Apparently Lieutenant Reed had grown impatient at allowing her to make the ground safe for him to emerge.

Impatience. Another regrettable Human trait. T'Pol sighed faintly as she entered the code to open the shuttlepod door. She noted the movement of her companion dislodging his small feathered passenger as quickly and gently as possible from around his neck and hurling it towards the paling sky.

The thump and rattle of falling shells had begun to sound through the city as she and the lieutenant dived into the relative safety of the small craft. He began the pre-flight checks while she activated the scanners, flicking quickly through the various readouts.

"The attack has opened much as you predicted yesterday, if I understood the display table, Lieutenant," she said. "Your reading of the situation appears to have been masterly."

"It was purely logical, Sub-commander," he responded sadly. His fingers continued to activate the controls almost as quickly as those of Ensign Mayweather could have done, but his gaze was abstracted. "I wish I could believe the rest of my predictions would be a lot less accurate, but I'm afraid they won't."

"You did all that you could." With a smooth movement the shuttlepod lifted into the air, and she switched the display from the environs of Bai to a far wider one that encompassed airborne threats. "There is missile activity in progress. I find no evidence of major launches, but strategically important sites are being targeted with medium size weapons. It is likely that the shuttlepod will become a target for both sides as soon as its launch is noted."

"All defensive systems engaged," Reed responded. "The more warning you can give me the better."

Within moments they were climbing swiftly over the city. Outbreaks of fire and intermittent explosions testified to the areas that were being 'softened up'; it seemed that the enemy was attacking simultaneously from the east and the west. The great open route that had been laid to welcome the sun's rays was now about to welcome an invading force, and to judge by the information being gathered by the shuttlepod's scanners, the resistance would be fierce but was ultimately destined to fail. Sooner or later, numbers, armaments, and determination would tell, and then there would be a new Government in Bai, presumably one anxious to establish good relations with other friendly worlds once their domestic dispute had been peacefully settled. For the present.

For the present. For ten years, twenty, fifty, a hundred; who could tell? Injustice would beget injustice, as it had down all the long years of Merixan civilization, and sooner or later the old scores would be repaid, and the see-saw would tip again, spilling yet another lake of blood into the red soil of Javna.

Her report would mean that Vulcan would probably not be among those to accept the extended hand of friendship.

It was quite inevitable that someone in Bai felt that they had a score to settle with the escaping Starfleet officer. A ground-to-air missile burst from the darkness below them, forcing the lieutenant to send the shuttlepod through some desperate maneuvers to evade it until its failsafe system detonated it. The explosion was uncomfortably close to the hull, and the small craft rocked on the shockwave.

_"Enterprise_, this is Sub-commander T'Pol." She activated the comms console. "We are in the shuttlepod and under attack. Please stand by to rescue us."

"We'll be with you in a couple of minutes, T'Pol." The captain's voice was tense. "What's your situation?"

"For the present, under control." The shuttlepod executed another series of crazy swerves, forcing her to grab hold of the console; at a guess, another missile was in pursuit. "But I would suggest you do not count on that situation continuing for long."

"We're on it."

The next seconds were intensely uncomfortable. It was just as well that both of the officers were belted into their seats, because the second missile was much better programmed than the first. For all the howls of the abused engine and the frantic rolls and turns through which Lieutenant Reed flung the craft, it crept inexorably closer.

"Not – sure we're–"

A sudden pulse of brilliant light outside was followed a fraction of a second later by a deafening explosion, drowning the rest of the lieutenant's gasped warning. The shuttlepod was flung forward, this time so violently that its superstructure gave a rending scream of tortured metal, but moments later, in raced the _Enterprise, _in the wake of its phase cannon blast, the atmospheric friction turning the front of the saucer incandescent with heat.

"As the Head of Tactical it is, of course, your decision, but if I may suggest it, a commendation for your deputy for his accurate shooting may be in order," T'Pol suggested calmly.

"I'll give him a medal _after_ the court-martial for firing at two superior officers." Reed brought the helm hard about to match the ship's course and speed, aiming for the launch bay which was already opening to deploy the docking clamp.

"Strictly speaking, he did not fire _at _us," she felt compelled to point out, in the interests of veracity.

"If he had, I'd have court-martialled him for missing."

The clamp closed on the shuttlepod while she was in process of dissecting these statements. Either way, Ensign Müller appeared to have incurred his senior officer's wrath – which, considering he had almost certainly saved both their lives with his well-aimed blast of one of the phase cannons, seemed rather hard. Since Humans had a propensity for humor in the most unlikely circumstances, however, she suspected that Lieutenant Reed might be joking. She would have to ask Commander Tucker to verify this.

The clamp lifted them to the safety of the launch bay, and the faint rumble of the outer doors closing came through the hull. The slight jolt told them when the shuttlepod was set down lightly on the deck.

"Better get up to the Bridge," said Reed, flicking the last controls off as part of the post-flight routine.

"You will, of course, want to change first." She glanced at him in some surprise. He had just come from a highly stressful experience, following on a difficult shore duty, and was not looking at his best. She could imagine that he would want to see the events unfolding on the planet below, however painful it was to witness, but it was remarkably uncharacteristic of him that he would contemplate doing so when his appearance fell so far below the high standards he always maintained.

He colored briefly, pushing a hand through his disordered hair. "I'll be quick."

"I am quite sure the captain would excuse you duty this morning. You worked well beyond your normal shift hours last night."

The comment had been made lightly, but she was astonished by the way the lieutenant flinched as though stung.

"I'm perfectly fit for duty, Sub-commander," he said stiffly. "I'll get changed and report to the Bridge, unless you have any objection."

She looked at him curiously. "I have every confidence in your judgment, Lieutenant. Please proceed."

Ordinarily she would have risen as he did, since there was nothing more to do in the shuttlepod. But some instinct made her feign interest in a non-existent forgotten duty on the console in front of her, so that he passed very close to her as he headed for the exit. And as he received permission from the launch bay supervisor to open the hatch, and activated the control to do so, he did not see the very hard stare she directed after him.

* * *

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	7. Chapter 7

After thinking furiously for perhaps a minute, T'Pol stood up and exited the shuttle herself.

She did not, however, go to her quarters to change.

She went instead to Main Engineering.

Commander Tucker was on the inspection platform in front of the warp engine, briefing a maintenance team to ensure the nacelle caps had suffered no damage during the brief incursion into the planetary atmosphere. Another team was just leaving, presumably to stand by at the appropriate airlock to carry out a similar inspection of the deflector dish. The inspections would necessitate the ship coming to a halt for a short time, but there being so little prospect of coming under fire from the planet's relatively primitive weaponry – especially when the Merixa had so much else to occupy their thoughts – it had been deemed quite safe for her to do so.

"Commander, I need to speak with you as a matter of urgency," she said, halting at the foot of the access ladder.

The chief engineer looked somewhat surprised, but turned over the briefing to his second and quickly descended to floor level. "What's up, Sub-commander? I hear you had a rough time down there."

With a frown, she led him a couple of paces to withdraw both of them from earshot of their juniors. "I am concerned about Lieutenant Reed."

"Malcolm? Was he hurt?"

"No. I don't think so," she said slowly. "I suspect something's wrong. But without much stronger proof, I'm reluctant to make accusations."

"You want me to talk to the cap'n?"

"I fear we may not have time for that." She looked up into his worried frown, now the mirror of hers. "Can you contrive a reason to be on the Bridge? At the Engineering station?"

"I daresay I can come up with somethin'. This little jaunt rescuin' you two shook the ship up a little. I can say somethin' needs checkin'."

"And can you conceal this phase pistol on you?" She had brought the one from the other shuttlepod, and held it out to him.

The blue eyes widened, and he fairly recoiled. _"What? _Why in hell would I need that thing?"

"You may not. But I want you to have it, and to be prepared to use it if you need to."

With obvious reluctance, he took it from her. He went quickly to his office, and tipped out the contents of a small tool-case on to the desk. The pistol fitted inside it, and he closed it and tucked it under one arm. "Let's go."

The two of them walked hurriedly to the nearest turbo-lift. "Are you goin' to tell me what this is all about?" Tucker asked in an undertone as the lift doors opened.

She darted a look at him. "I have only suspicions. But I suspect that Lieutenant Reed may have been compromised in some way."

_"Malcolm?" _It was fortunate that they were now inside the lift; the Human did not attempt to moderate his cry of outraged astonishment.

"Yes," she said shortly. "I want you to stay at the Engineering station and watch him as closely as you can without making it obvious. And have the phase pistol ready, set on stun. I shall be monitoring him from the Science station."

"An' you don't want the _cap'n_ told about this?"

She turned to face him. "I don't want to level scurrilous and possibly unfounded accusations at an officer I respect without far stronger proof than I have. If I'm in error, I shall be relieved to be proved wrong. If I'm not, I believe that you and I, forewarned, may be able to contain the situation."

To judge by his stunned expression, he was having difficulty in absorbing the concept of anyone having grounds to level 'scurrilous' accusations, or indeed accusations of any sort, against the ultra-correct Englishman in charge of Tactical. He was so perturbed, indeed, that he didn't even pass any comment about 'relief' being an emotion. However, as the turbo-lift arrived at the Bridge, he managed to compose his features, and nobody glancing casually at him would have noticed anything amiss as he made his excuses to the captain and moved to the Engineering station, where he set down the tool-case and began tinkering with the insides of the control panel in a laudably convincing manner.

Trusting that the captain was so preoccupied with watching events on the viewscreen that he would accept her own arrival without comment, and not notice immediately that she was still wearing her formal Vulcan robes, T'Pol slid into her seat at the Science station. In the circumstances, it was not much of a gamble, and it paid off. Like most of his bridge crew, Captain Archer was grimly watching the tragedy unfold far below. At a guess he was hoping even now for some chance to offer help, perhaps even a last-minute appeal to mediate a truce or arrange terms for a surrender. She doubted whether his optimism was justified, but at least it afforded her a delay before having to deal with his inevitable concern and curiosity over the landing party's experiences.

The viewscreen displayed the story in unflinching detail. Parts of Bai were already ablaze. The Council buildings were rubble. Similar scenes were being played out in all the major cities across the planet. Crew and captain watched in silence. Only Commander Tucker, busy under the Engineering console, seemed oblivious.

The sound of the turbo-lift doors opening was loud in the appalled hush. Lieutenant Reed stepped out of it, restored to his customary pristine appearance – though she noted that he was still wearing the phase pistol from the shuttlepod, which should have been restored to the locker. Without a word he moved quickly to his station, taking over from the junior officer manning it.

T'Pol had already changed her display to monitor any changes that took place on Tactical. With horror, but somehow without surprise, she watched the tell-tale information pour in. He was fast, expert. He would require only seconds.

She leaped to her feet. "Trip! _Stop him!" _she screamed.

She swept her own pistol from its hiding place, but in the event it was unnecessary. Almost before it was leveled, a shot from under the Engineering station caught the tactical officer square in the body. At that range the force of it knocked the lieutenant sideways and sent him sprawling unconscious on the deck, his face still frozen in the remnants of a look of surprise.

* * *

The captain was scowling.

Phlox was examining the still unconscious Lieutenant Reed, both of them hidden from view behind the privacy curtain in Sickbay. Captain Archer had seen his tactical officer safely bestowed and pronounced in no immediate danger, and then come out to begin the investigation into what must have appeared to him a quite incredible chain of events.

T'Pol's fairly brief initial explanation of why she'd had one of his officers shoot the other with a phase pistol on the Bridge seemed rather to have fanned his wrath than cooled it. Wherefore the scowl, now shared equally between his First Officer and his Chief Engineer.

"Are you absolutely sure you didn't make a mistake?" he demanded. "For heaven's sake, you know what Malcolm's like. He keeps those weapons ready to fire at the drop of a hat! He was probably just going through the routine, because of what was going on down there. He'd be worrying in case someone took a pot shot at _Enterprise_! And you went and _shot _him?"

The Vulcan faced him calmly. "Sir. He was not 'going through a routine'. The logs will bear me out, and I believe so will Commander Tucker. Lieutenant Reed was preparing the ship's weapons to fire – both cannons and torpedoes, a full spread. And in another two seconds he would have done it. On his own initiative."

"It's true, Cap'n." The commander's face was a picture of misery, but his tone was definite. "I saw it for myself. Everything was armed and aimed. He was goin' for the firin' sequence when I dropped him."

Captain Archer looked from one to the other of them in total bewilderment. "But why?"

Commander Tucker said nothing, but looked at her. He had obeyed the orders of a senior officer, and probably much against his better judgment. She had to exonerate him of blame, even though he refrained from appealing for her to do so.

"Sir, the decision was mine." She paused. "I suspect the lieutenant's loyalties may have been compromised by a sexual encounter with one of the Merixa."

"What?" yelled Tucker. "_Malcolm?"_

Captain Archer said nothing, but turned away and walked rapidly to the far wall. He stood there with his back turned, obviously absorbing the development and thinking hard. When he turned around, his face was granite. "I hope you have some evidence for that accusation."

"Unfortunately, Captain, there _is _evidence." Phlox's voice was heavy as he pushed through the curtain. "My initial examination has revealed significant traces of Merixan DNA on Mister Reed's body."

"My God." The chief engineer covered his eyes briefly with one hand. "I don't believe it."

"Anything else?" the captain asked bluntly.

Phlox shook his head. "He's washed very recently. Impossible to tell without a much closer examination."

_Washed, _thought T'Pol. Consistent with the lieutenant's impeccable hygiene when donning a clean uniform, even in haste; also consistent with the actions of a guilty man taking steps to get rid of evidence.

Phlox's findings merely reinforced what her nose had told her when the tactical officer had passed close by her on his way out of the shuttlepod. Quite possibly a human nose would not have detected it, but even though the years of service on _Enterprise_ had done much to blunt her sensitivity to the smell of her crewmates, she had caught the odor of Weapons Master Yathai's perfume quite distinctly on Lieutenant Reed's person.

Considering that the two of them had spent a considerable time together the day before, that in itself would not have aroused her suspicions unduly. But coupled with that guilty start in response to a quite casual remark about his having worked long hours after his shift, plus the fact that she herself had slept far more heavily than she would ordinarily have done – so heavily that she had no idea at what time he had returned to his room – it added up to something that had set the seal on her belief that something somewhere was wrong.

She would have put it down, with some disapproval, to another instance of Human inability to control their sexual urges if she hadn't suspected that she had been deliberately removed from the reckoning. That, plus Reed's insistence on going to the Bridge immediately even though he was disheveled and unwashed, had set alarm bells ringing. The officer with immediate access to the ship's weapons had possibly been compromised by potentially intimate contact with an individual on one side of a now declared civil war, and was acting uncharacteristically. The situation must be monitored as a matter of the utmost urgency, at least until the crisis was over.

She had felt some reluctance in recruiting Commander Tucker to assist her in monitoring the suspect. But it turned out that her suspicions had been correct. If she had not acted on them in the way that she had, _Enterprise _would have been drawn into the conflict, embroiling Starfleet in a major scandal and quite possibly ending Captain Archer's career as well as that of the guilty man himself.

Even she was having difficulty in believing that an officer as exemplary as Lieutenant Reed would carry out such a heinous betrayal of his commanding officer. It was therefore hardly surprising that the captain and Commander Tucker appeared stunned. Their regard for the lieutenant had the additional complication of being mingled with affection – the chief engineer in particular had developed a friendship with the previously rather reserved Englishman, and now looked positively sick.

"I have to get back to the Bridge," Captain Archer said at last. "Phlox, carry out whatever tests you can. Trip, carry on in Engineering – I'll call you when we have time to discuss this. T'Pol, as of now, Lieutenant Reed is suspended from duty. I want a security detail kept on him and a note made of anything he says. When he wakes up and Phlox clears him fit, he may have to face a Court Martial."

Tucker opened his mouth, clearly to protest, but closed it again without doing so. After a moment he simply said "Cap'n." Then he nodded acknowledgment, turned around and walked out of Sickbay without another word.

Phlox disappeared behind the curtain again, and T'Pol stood waiting for dismissal. Her commanding officer stared at the privacy curtain for a moment as though illogically expecting to find an explanation written on it, but then roused himself. "You probably had a rough time yourself yesterday," he said to her with unexpected sympathy. "Take the morning off duty and get yourself some rest."

"With your permission, Captain, I will absent myself from duty, but I will take the opportunity to write down everything regarding this situation while it is still fresh in my mind. If I can meditate, it will help to clarify my thoughts."

"Whatever it takes." He looked at the curtain again. Fatigue and grief and confusion were etched on his face. "I'd have trusted him anywhere…"

"Sir." She spoke softly. "Under your own legal code, the lieutenant is innocent until convicted in a court of law."

_Or by his own actions_. The words hung in the air between them, unspoken.

"We'd better get back to the Bridge," he said at last, heavily. "You never know. I told Hoshi to keep broadcasting appeals for them to let us mediate to reduce the casualties, but I don't hold out much hope."

T'Pol thought to herself that Ensign Sato probably knew perfectly well she was wasting her time, but would doubtless continue obediently proffering an offer neither side would accept. The only aid _Enterprise _was likely to be able to render would be humanitarian in helping to clean up the aftermath, if indeed they were asked to do so. She hoped that Captain Archer would not blame himself for not being able to do more to avert a war that had been utterly inevitable.

The two of them left Sickbay. She headed for the Armory, to pass on the orders for the security detail to whoever was in charge there and to ensure that the sudden loss of their department head would have no detrimental effect on its efficient running. At a guess, Reed's deputy Ensign Müller would have stepped up to retake command, stoically awaiting developments; it was only proper for him to be given a brief and redacted account of events, since doubtless the news would have flashed around the ship, doubtless growing ever more garbled as it went.

As for what would happen when the lieutenant awoke, only time would tell.

* * *

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	8. Chapter 8

Trip tried over and over again that night to immerse himself in the latest technical journal to reach them from Starfleet R&D.

Usually its arrival was a red-letter day for him, though naturally not on a par with those on which he received mail from home. Starfleet channels allowed only a limited amount of personal communications to be routed through, but personnel on a long haul like _Enterprise_'s qualified for somewhat special treatment. Almost everyone received regular letters from families and loved ones, compressed into a data burst and sent via whatever transmission methods were available. Occasionally even nearby Vulcan ships had been pressed into service when the NX-01 was beyond the range of the 'Echo' beacons, solemnly passing on 'important information' when they came within range. Well, Jonathan Archer considered his crew's morale extremely important, so in his eyes anything that helped to maintain that qualified. And it didn't hurt any that the Vulcans were playing postman to material that if they'd examined it would probably have confirmed them in their opinion that Humans were incurably enslaved by their emotions.

The journal, though, was part of 'legitimate' traffic that piggybacked on reports regularly sent to the captain from Starfleet HQ. Its arrival on this day of all days seemed a tad coincidental, but Hoshi, presenting the data chip to him earlier, had maintained a poker face when questioned on that point. He strongly suspected that she'd been saving it for a day when he could do with brightening up – it had happened before that an idle remark at the Mess Hall table had miraculously resulted in a journal arriving that very day. And hell, if ever he could do with 'brightening up', now was definitely _it_.

Entrancing as the contents of the journal were, however, he finally had to admit he couldn't concentrate. He switched off the computer, put the data chip into a storage compartment and left his cabin.

* * *

"Enter."

It was immediately obvious that Jon was not in a good mood. He'd showered and was lying on his bed half-dressed. A water-polo match was in progress on the screen, but it seemed that the attractions of the match were about equal to those of the journal. He was bouncing his basketball off the opposite wall and catching it again, a scowl on his face. Though the latter was understandable, given what he'd been watching for half of the day, until at last despair had won out and he'd ordered the viewscreen switched back to standard. Far underneath the ship's belly, it had looked like almost a quarter of Javna was burning. The hails from the Comm station had continued, but nobody had replied.

Porthos, always sensitive to his master's moods, was curled up in his basket rather than illicitly sharing the bed. The tip of his tail wagged in welcome, but he didn't move, and when Jon sat up the dog cast him an unmistakably anxious look.

"He hasn't woken up yet?"

"Not yet." The captain would normally have tossed the ball to him, playfully testing his reflexes, but this time he simply put it down. "Phlox says it should be any time."

"Jon, I … I can't believe he'd do something like this."

"You and me both." He picked up the ball again and threw it. The force he put into it was eloquent.

Trip ran a hand unhappily through his hair, unconsciously rumpling it still further. "If it was just a bit of romance – hell, Jon, he's only human…"

The other man shot him a hard look. "He was a Starfleet officer on duty, and part of a landing party in a high-risk situation. If no worse, any 'romance' he engaged in was ill-advised at best. As for the rest of it – you saw what he did. There are no excuses, Trip. He was going to bring _Enterprise_ into a war!"

"I'm not lookin' for _excuses, _Cap'n. But there's got to be _reasons. _This is Malcolm we're talkin' about here." He understood that Jon was in a tough situation: the captain had to protect Starfleet and the ship by expecting the officer to conform to strict standards of professional behavior, although the man would readily grasp any means that might show themselves of protecting the friend.

The comms panel chirped at that moment. "Phlox to Captain Archer."

The captain pressed the 'respond' button. "Archer."

"Mister Reed has begun to regain consciousness, Captain. I believe you wished to be informed."

"I'll be there." He closed the link, rose energetically from the bed and pulled on a sweat-top. "Now we may get some answers."

"Mind if I tag along?" asked Trip.

"You're welcome. Maybe he'll talk more freely to you."

As the two of them walked down the corridor, the chief engineer thought despondently that this was unlikely. He'd had some success with coaxing Malcolm out of his shell, but he knew that the Brit still held his captain very much at a distance, in accordance with the rigid respect for rank that had been drilled into him since childhood. As long as the captain was in the room, Malcolm would remain absolutely formal, resisting any attempt to draw him out. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to be the time to suggest to Jon that his presence might not be the best thing ever for helping to get a handle on the situation. In view of the gravity of the intended offense, he would want to hear every word his tactical officer uttered, in the attempt to understand what the hell had happened.

The double doors to Sickbay opened on a scene of chaos.

Malcolm, clad only in his blues, was struggling frantically in the grip of Phlox and one of his own junior officers. "Let me go! Let me _go!" _he was yelling. His eyes were so wide they seemed about to start out of his head, but as soon as he saw the captain every bit of the fight seemed to go out of him. He sagged as though injected with a paralyzing drug, crumpling bonelessly to the floor.

"Help me get him back on to the bed, Ensign," said Phlox briskly.

Malcolm neither helped nor hindered them as they lifted him back up on to the bio-bed, and lay there exactly as they placed him, completely motionless, with his eyes shut. Only the quick rise and fall of his chest continued, betraying the fact that he was still in a state of extreme agitation. Ensign de la Haye – Trip remembered the name after a second – stepped back to her place by the door, ashen but still resolute.

"What was he trying to do? Escape?" the captain asked Phlox, low-voiced.

"No, Captain. If I understood his intention correctly, he was trying to reach the shower area." The Denobulan's blue eyes were dark with pity and concern.

"It's a little too late for that, isn't it? I take it you finished all your tests." A curt gesture ordered de la Haye to resume guard outside, out of earshot.

"I have, Captain. Some of my test results have yet to come through, but the majority are done."

"And?"

Phlox exhaled. "The indications are that Lieutenant Reed almost certainly engaged in some form of sexual congress with a Merixan female last night." He blinked once and continued, in a lower voice, "I also took blood samples from Sub-Commander T'Pol. They confirm that she was subjected to some form of mild sedation, probably introduced into her room through the ventilation system. The odor of the chemical concerned is quite unnoticeable in low concentrations, even for a Vulcan."

The captain's face had grown even grimmer. "So the intention was that she wouldn't know what Malcolm and this – female had gotten up to."

"That is the most probable conclusion. I could find no evidence that she had been touched in any way."

After pausing for a moment, probably to get his thoughts in order, Captain Archer stepped to the bedside.

"I think you heard that, Malcolm," he said levelly. "Now I'm waiting for your explanation."

The Englishman did not move for a moment. He simply lay there like a rag doll whose owner has dropped it in the gutter. Then, in one concerted movement, he turned over and huddled into himself.

He only said one word, but they all heard it.

"Guilty."

* * *

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	9. Chapter 9

It was late before Trip returned to his cabin.

He was bone tired, but he didn't immediately strip off and begin readying himself for bed. Instead, he pulled a beer from the stash in the small chiller built into one of his cabinets, sat on the bed and began moodily reviewing the unpleasant events of the last hour. Every so often he swigged from the bottle as though the contents might help wash away the bitter sense of helplessness.

He and Jon had done everything to make Malcolm talk. Ordering, cajoling, pleading … nothing had worked. After that one word, the Brit had closed up like a clam. Even when in frustration Jon had left the room, hoping Trip on his own could coax some reaction from him, there had been no reply. No reaction at all. Just that taut, rigid body, and the mouth and eyes clamped shut.

Eventually Phlox had intervened. He had said that some of the patient's bio-signs were becoming dangerously elevated, and disregarding the captain's protests he had pressed a hypospray to Malcolm's neck. Only then had the blue-clad frame relaxed, though there had been enough residual tension in it to make it unexpectedly difficult for the doctor to ease out the tactical officer's legs and arms from their tightly fetal position into one that would be more comfortable while he slept. Then he had pulled up a blanket to cover him, and the whole scene had looked just like any one of a dozen in which the tactical officer had been Sickbay's most reluctant resident, recuperating from some mishap or other in the line of duty.

Except that it wasn't. And some of Jon's bio-signs were probably getting pretty damned elevated too, by this time, but even with his temper in shreds he couldn't overrule his CMO when it came to patient welfare. He'd stalked away back to his cabin and what sleep he could get, and watching him go Trip had thought to himself that if he were Porthos he'd crawl all the way under the bed and stay there till morning.

Hell, this wasn't getting him anywhere, he reflected ruefully, tipping up the bottle for the last swallow. Might as well get what shut-eye he could, ready for everything to kick off again tomorrow.

He stripped off most of his clothes and was just emerging from the bathroom, his hands on the waistband of his briefs ready to drop them into the laundry chute with the rest, when his door chime rang.

"Who is it?" he called cautiously. If it was Jon he'd have to take what he found, but if it was T'Pol it might be better to get a bit more appropriately dressed.

It proved, to his surprise, to be Travis.

The young helmsman wore an expression of some unease, but his air was resolute. After apologizing for the lateness of his visit, he asked if it would be possible to talk about something.

"C'mon in," replied Trip, resigning himself to even less sleep than he'd feared. "Fancy a beer?"

"No, thanks, sir." Travis came into the cabin as ordered, but stood awkwardly by the door. He didn't make a practice of paying social calls on his senior officers, being much more comfortable in the company of his fellow ensigns and lower ranks.

Trip sat on the bed again and contemplated getting another beer for himself. Maybe it wasn't the best idea. He glanced up at his visitor and gave a tight smile. "Might as well spit it out, Travis. Unless you're plannin' on standin' there all night."

Mayweather's smile in return was strained. "Sir, it's – it's what happened on the Bridge earlier. I was – we were wondering – there are so many rumors going around. I just wanted to ask if there was anything we were allowed to know."

Well, it had been pretty inevitable. It wasn't something that could be kept quiet; no doubt the rumor mill would be working at full speed by now. And Travis and Hoshi, along with a few others of the bridge crew, had been shocked witnesses of everything that had happened.

The only problem was that there was so little anyone actually knew – himself and the Captain including. Of that, even less was suitable for release to junior officers. It was all but certain that Travis would keep to himself anything he'd been told was confidential, but it was still completely out of order for him to be given anything like the truth. After all, what _was _the truth? So far, they had nothing but a set of facts that refused to fall into any recognizable pattern, and a man's whole future rested on the outcome.

"There's not a whole lot I can tell ya, Travis," he said slowly. "We have to find out a lot more before we can take any action. And right now, Malcolm's sedated in Sickbay, so he's not in any state to cooperate."

The ex-Boomer's eyes rested on him with a kind of fearful fascination. "Sir, you – you _shot_ him."

"I didn't have much choice about that. I sure as hell didn't enjoy it." If he shut his own eyes he could see it again, as though the scene were burned on to his retinas: the intent profile, the fingers going through their deadly dance on the Tactical console. He'd had his hand on the phase pistol the instant Malcolm slid into his seat, though his mind refused to believe that this was anything more than some incredible misunderstanding on T'Pol's part. He'd honestly thought that the whole thing would end up with him slinking off the Bridge with his non-existent repairs supposedly completed, and quietly restoring the weapon to its locker with no-one ever being the wiser. Hell, he'd even have passed up teasing T'Pol about her mistake if only things could have worked out that way.

"I can't go into the details, you'll understand that. But the war down there – it's actually a war between the sexes. Men against women. Accordin' to what was in T'Pol's report, anyway." He doubted if that much could be regarded as classified. "And somehow, Malcolm got … involved. We have no idea how. But he was goin' to fire the ship's weapons at somethin' on the planet. That's why we had to stop him."

He watched Travis work through the awful implications. The ensign was a highly intelligent young man; it didn't take him a minute.

"I see." The helmsman's gaze dropped to the deck plating for a moment and then lifted again. "Sir, is there anything I can do to help?"

"If there was, you'd be the first to hear about it." Trip paused. "Travis, even what I've told you is totally confidential. If I find there's a single word of it out on the rumor mill, I'll have you spendin' every minute of your free time scrubbin' Jeffries tubes with a toothbrush for the rest of the voyage."

The younger man mustered a smile. "I don't expect to be raiding the quartermaster's supplies any time soon, sir."

"Hell, I'd never have told you if I hadn't known that."

There being little more to be said at this point, Travis took his leave, thanking him for the information. Trip finished stripping off, balled his underwear and threw it in the general direction of the laundry chute. He was too worn out to bother standing up, walking over and dropping it in; he'd do it in the morning. Gratefully he rolled into bed and switched the lights off.

Sleep, however, proved elusive.

For perhaps an hour he struggled to get comfortable. Ordinarily he had no problem with his bunk at all; he'd tumble into it and fall headlong into the sleep of the exhausted, except of course on those times when some engineering problem was playing on his mind and kept him awake a while. Tonight, however, he found himself just going over and over T'Pol's report and Malcolm's inexplicable behavior, trying vainly to fit the two of them into some universe that made sense. And the bunk just seemed to be made of duranium with lumps in it, while as for the pillow … well, someone had substituted it for one filled with jell-o. No support in it at all, and how was a man supposed to do his job right when he got up in the morning with a cricked neck from a useless goddamn pillow?

Maybe he should go talk to Phlox, get something to help him sleep. But that would mean having to set eyes on Malcolm again, having the whole crazy business pushed right back into his face, and if he was to get any sleep at all he had to find some way of stepping back from it, at least for a couple of hours. If he couldn't visit Sickbay, maybe a hot drink would go some way to relaxing him. He wasn't keen on milk without a good helping of coffee in it, but his Mom had cited its soothing properties so often that he was sort of persuaded it helped.

Sighing, he sat up and pulled on a pair of sweat-pants. The ship had been quiet for hours now; only the Gamma shift would be on duty. Chances were he wouldn't even meet anyone else between here and the Mess, and probably the Mess itself would be deserted.

He padded barefoot down the dim corridors. He was right in his first guess: the place was as quiet as a tomb. Although obviously they were offline right now, he liked the sensation of the low, easy hum of the warp engines striking up through the deck plating into his feet. Boots muted the effect, made it feel less alive and personal. He loved this ship so much, saw the whole voyage as a huge adventure, and that he should be in charge of the engines that made it all possible was the greatest honor he could imagine.

An enormous responsibility too, of course, but he wasn't afraid of that.

His second supposition, however, was inaccurate. Another member of the Alpha shift was sleepless too, it seemed.

He didn't see her immediately, being too focused on getting his hot milk and retreating to his cabin. If the lights had been on normal strength he'd have noticed her at once, but she was so slight and dark, standing in the shadows in the furthest corner, just staring out of the observation port. He might well not have seen her at all, but he just glimpsed her as he turned around to leave.

Ordinarily he'd have opened a conversation at once. There sure had to be some reason why Hoshi was wakeful at this hour, and they'd often sparred cheerfully over breakfast. She wasn't in his chain of command, but that was no reason why he shouldn't show concern, just offer a friendly voice if she happened to need one.

Something checked him, however. With her ultra-sensitive hearing, there was no way she could be unaware of his presence, but she hadn't turned around. The set of her back suggested that she wanted to be left alone, and he paused, wondering if he should ignore that impression and speak anyway. She certainly knew he was there; at a guess, she could tell from his breathing who he was. If she wanted company or comfort, all she had to do was look around.

She didn't.

Sometimes people just want to be left alone to sort things out in their own mind. Maybe this was one of the times for Hoshi. With a small, resigned shrug Trip left the Mess again and walked back to his quarters, sipping the hot milk cautiously as he went in the effort to get it drunk as soon as possible.

Most of it was gone by the time he was back in his bunk. Some benevolent entity had replaced the duranium mattress with his usual comfortable one, and the pillow mysteriously no longer felt as though it were made of jell-o. Sighing relief, he pulled up the blanket again and shut his eyes. Momma always knew what she was talking about.

The last thing that drifted through his mind was that Travis and Hoshi ….

* * *

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	10. Chapter 10

By the time the Alpha shift returned to duty the next morning, the majority of the fighting around Bai appeared to be over. Other cities, some larger or differently designed, were presenting more of a problem, but it was easy to guess that given the nature of the conflict, it hadn't always been a case of an invading enemy having to force ingress into held territory; assuming that men shared living quarters with the women, it would probably have been more of a case of a coordinated coup in many areas. Bai, perhaps, had been a special case.

Given that it seemed to have been the center of government, it was probably a safe assumption that men would have had very restricted access to it. For that reason, probably, it had required forcible reduction. The resistance had been valiant and was still not completely over, but it hadn't been a case of hand-to-hand fighting in the streets. Where there was opposition, the artillery had been called in. Waves of warplanes had arrowed in, delivering precision strikes. The attackers apparently didn't care if the city was reduced to rubble thereby, or how many innocent civilians had to suffer. The army sent against it swallowed the city piece by piece, slowly and efficiently and patiently, like a giant anaconda.

Sunrise saw a cessation in the bombardment. Maybe there was nobody left to fight, or maybe everyone had just paused to draw breath before the next round. A thick haze of smoke hung over the city, but the thermal imagery of the ship's scanners saw fires still burning. The roads that had been so clean and beautifully laid out were now choked with debris, the houses that had been so elegant were charred and pocked with shell holes and shrapnel – those few of them left with four walls still standing. Whole streets had simply been flattened.

Captain Jonathan Archer, reviewing the situation with his senior officers, was conscious of a corrosive sense of failure as he gazed at what could be seen of the city that twenty-four hours ago had been so beautiful. He couldn't rid himself of the feeling that there should have been something he could have done to stop this from happening. It was somewhat consoling when T'Pol said flatly that she doubted whether the entire diplomatic resources of Starfleet and the High Command combined could have prevailed in talking sense into two sides so determined on fighting, but maybe her Vulcan logic was rubbing off on him.

It was all just so utterly _senseless. _To him, at least. Doubtless the Merixa saw things differently – those who were still alive, at least. The pendulum had swung, and they had to accept it. One day it would swing in the opposite direction, and the killing would start again.

The Armory's Gamma shift head had stayed on duty to take her boss's part in the briefing. She was cool and collected, fire battened down hard under ice. She answered all questions fully and competently, just as Malcolm would have done, and appeared to feel no curiosity as to why she was suddenly standing in for him. No doubt she had a thousand questions, and would sooner or later require answers, but for the present she was biding her time. The captain was heartily glad of it. He had enough questions of his own without having to field more from Em.

"You've got the department covered for the time being, Ensign," he said as she moved to depart – his tone more one of confirmation than questioning.

"_Sí, Patrón. – _Yes, Captain," she corrected herself. Ordinarily the captain accepted her use of the vernacular as just one of her quirks, but he gave her points for knowing when to toe the line. He noted the quick glance she gave him as she left the situation room. There was not quite a demand in it, but there was certainly appeal.

Just another in the queue of people wanting answers he didn't have.

He had Hoshi broadcast another call from the ship, hailing anyone who might be interested; asking if there was any help they could render.

No answer.

He retired to his ready room, conscious that his temper was already fraying. If it hadn't been for the thought of all the innocent casualties down there, he'd have been tempted to just order Travis to break orbit and leave the Merixa to enjoy their little bloodbath for as long as they wanted. And besides, _something _had happened down there that had very nearly resulted in an extremely serious incident involving his tactical officer. He wanted answers, and if he wasn't going to get any from Malcolm, he was damn well going to get them from somebody else.

After reading the latest reports from Starfleet and sending some of his own, mostly with regard to the situation on Javna – though omitting certain details until he had a lot more of them to send, because the last thing he needed right now was some Starfleet bureaucrat barging in on a subspace channel demanding to know what the hell was going on – he commed Phlox. Surely he'd waited long enough now? As far as the doc's report had said, Malcolm hadn't been injured. Sure, being stunned by a phase pistol shot at close range wouldn't have been pleasant, but it was specifically designed to do relatively little damage. He ought to be over it by now. The initial shock and anger at a senior officer's incredible behavior had given way to bewilderment and concern, which was rapidly becoming submerged by plain worry.

The doctor answered the hail immediately. Yes, he said, Lieutenant Reed was awake.

"Why didn't you call me when he woke up?" asked Jon, trying not to sound irritable.

"Because I have been trying to keep him relaxed so that I don't have to sedate him again. Unfortunately, it appears I may have little choice." There was the sound of a crash in the background. "Come down by all means if you wish, Captain, but I recommend you treat him with caution."

'Treat him with caution'? What the heck was going on down there?

Well, he wasn't going to find out by sitting here in his Ready Room listening to anonymous sound effects over a comm link. He surged out of his chair and strode onto the Bridge. "T'Pol, you have the Bridge. I'm going down to Sickbay." And, not waiting for a response, he walked rapidly to the turbo-lift.

* * *

When he entered Sickbay, passing the guard waiting patiently outside the door, Phlox was standing alone.

"Where is he?" demanded the captain.

"He's in the shower, Captain. And I would suggest that–"

Jon, however, was past taking advice. He just wanted to know what had happened, so he could start putting together appropriate responses. Ordinarily, of course, he'd have respected Malcolm's privacy just as he would any of his crew, but right now Brit sensibilities were rather a long way down on his list of things to worry about.

He slammed the heel of his hand on to the door control into the bathroom.

Malcolm was inside, standing under the shower in his briefs. He didn't appear to be making any attempt to wash himself. He was just scoring his chest and stomach with his nails, over and over again. The water was running down his face, but he didn't seem to notice it, just stared blankly at the wall in front of him.

_"Lieutenant!" _It was as close as the captain had ever gotten to bellowing at one of his crew. It was purely instinctive, done to try to jerk the other man out of that terrible trance-like state.

The Brit didn't even blink. His fingers, crooked into claws, went on raking across his body. Fortunately he kept his fingernails short, so they did little damage, but the skin was already crisscrossed with weals.

This had to be stopped. Without even pausing to think, Jon plunged under the shower, grabbed his officer by the shoulders, hauled him around to face him and slammed him bodily back against the wall. "Malcolm!" he hissed, thrusting his face so close that their noses almost touched. _"Tell me what happened down there!"_

Slowly the blank gaze shortened. The dilated pupils contracted. Drops of water stood on the surprisingly long dark eyelashes like rain. For a moment, an expression of puzzled worry crossed the tactical officer's features, as though he were trying to remember something he'd forgotten. Then he slowly but firmly brought his joined hands up in front of him, broke Jon's hold on him with the outsides of his forearms, turned away and slid down the wall. As soon as he hit the floor, he curled up into a ball again.

"No!" The captain followed him down, trying to stop him, trying to reach him. "Malcolm, you've got to talk to me! I'm trying to help you, goddamn it!"

Reed's fingernails were now raking his scalp. He was rocking in as if in physical pain. "Guilty," he whispered almost inaudibly. "My fault..."

"Captain!" Phlox's hands were gripping Jon's upper arms so hard they hurt. "You will not help him this way. Please, come away and leave him alone."

"I can't!"

"Jonathan." It was probably the first time the Denobulan had ever addressed him by his given name, and even now he wondered at the kindness in it, as well as the firmness. "Mister Reed is on the edge of nervous collapse. I know you mean well, but for now, trust me. He is better off where he is."

Slowly the captain released his hold. Malcolm didn't even seem to notice, just huddled there, still rocking, but now silent.

He allowed Phlox to pull him from the shower room. Both of them were fully dressed and now soaked from head to foot. "You've got to do something for him, Doc," he said at last.

"At present, Captain, I am allowing him to do something that seems – for whatever reason – to be immensely important to him. He will not do himself any serious damage, and it may do him some good. Rest assured that I am monitoring him continuously. I am confident he will emerge when he's ready, and when he does, he may feel able to talk." The Denobulan looked at him with gentle understanding. "I'll call you the moment I have anything to report."

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	11. Chapter 11

Weary to his soul, Jonathan trudged back to his quarters to change. He didn't have time to dry his hair properly. If anyone on the Bridge noticed, they'd just have to wonder.

Phlox had had one additional piece of information to give him during the visit to Sickbay, though it served more to increase the confusion than anything: there had been minute traces of some previously unknown substance in Malcolm's blood. The tests to identify its nature had taken some time, but the doctor was now of the opinion that it would have had very little effect on the lieutenant other than to give him a passing sensation of mild muscular weakness – about on the level with the effects of the common cold.

Another piece of jigsaw that didn't fit anywhere.

Just great.

He was just pulling on a fresh coverall when the comm buzzed. "T'Pol to Captain Archer."

"Archer."

"Sir, we're being hailed from the planet's surface." Her voice was completely expressionless.

"I'll be there in five."

He closed the link and dragged a comb through his damp hair, wondering bitterly who it was who'd finally decided to answer the door he'd been vainly banging on for so long. At a guess, whoever it was wouldn't be calling with kind inquiries after his tactical officer's welfare.

T'Pol was occupying the command chair when he strode from the turbo-lift. She rose with her usual grace and returned to the Science station. He tried not to see her look of grave concern.

Hoshi, at hers, was obviously holding the call. She watched him with troubled eyes, waiting for him to give the order. "Sir, it's a man named Varlahay, claiming to be the new … the word he's using is _'Ichexic'. _It wasn't on their database, but _Ichexin _was the female 'President', so I'm guessing it's the male equivalent."

"Put him on screen."

The Merix who appeared would have been in his mid-forties in human reckoning. He was strongly built for the species in general, but shared the common trait of being slightly elongated by human standards, with a neck that was considerably more flexible. His dark curly hair was long enough to be tied at the back, though three small plaits trailed down across his collarbones on either side. Something about him looked wrong for a moment, and then the captain realized what it was: the six barbels on his cheekbones had been cut short. The stumps were fully healed, and presumably still had some kind of neurological response left, for they twitched continually. He was wearing what appeared to be some kind of green uniform, though it was streaked with soot and what looked like blood; although visibly tired, he also seemed surprisingly sad. If he was calling to brag about his 'victory', he didn't look like it had been gained without cost.

"You are Captain Archer?" he asked without preamble.

"That's right. I'm honored to meet you, Ichexic Varlahay." Jon measured him. He didn't look like some kind of murderous fanatic; more like the sort of guy who'd be happiest tucked away cataloging a library somewhere. But then, organizing a planet-wide takeover that had been so successful so quickly would take remarkable intelligence – along with luck, judgment and enormous support.

"Thank you, Captain, for your offers to mediate. Though we could not accept them, we acknowledged your good intentions. Nevertheless, as I am sure you Humans would do if our positions were reversed, we preferred to deal with our own issues in our own way."

For a rebuke, it was kindly enough given. Nevertheless the captain flushed slightly; the tone reminded him a little too strongly of the sometimes faintly patronizing attitude of Vulcan Ambassador Soval.

"I'd hoped 'your own way' might include some means of sparing thousands of casualties," he replied, with just the barest edge on his formal tone. "But obviously you have the right to do things however you see fit."

Varlahay nodded acceptance. It wasn't an apology, but he didn't seem to expect one.

"However," Jon pursued, before the other man could speak, "there's an issue I'd appreciate your help with, if you can spare the time."

The amber-colored eyes studied him carefully. "You must understand I have many calls on my time, Captain. But in the interest of good relations between our worlds, I'll do what I can."

The rest of the conversation was going to have to be private. The captain retired to his Ready Room and Hoshi patched the transmission through to him.

"I'm sure you're aware that we were in the process of trying to establish friendly relationship with the previous Government of your world." He was quite sure that Varlahay _would _know that, so there was no point in trying to hide the fact, any more than there was any reason to be ashamed of it. Another slight nod confirmed this, so he pressed on. "I'm anxious to speak to a member of the Council who may be able to shed some light on something that happened to my tactical officer while he was down there. I realize that the chances are she may not even be alive, but she's about the only person who may know what happened to him."

"A tactical officer. I would hazard a guess that the person you wish to speak to is Weapons Master Yathai." The new President was plainly nothing if not shrewd, but his voice held no particular animosity – at least, not yet.

Again, there was no point in attempting to hide the truth. "Exactly. Would you happen to know if she's still alive?"

"Certain of our observers reported – _modifications _in Bai's defenses, the night before the assault began. The sort of changes that made our advance needlessly difficult. Yathai would have had her plans laid for a long time. It was significant, to our mind, that these 'modifications' were put into place very late. Almost as though she'd had – expert advice."

"Lieutenant Reed _is _an expert. And he was operating under my orders. You'll have noticed that these changes were purely defensive. Things could have been very different. But they weren't."

"Nevertheless, Captain, these changes cost lives – lives that might not have been lost if you and your officer had not interfered."

It was on the tip of Jon's tongue to snap that losing lives was an inevitable corollary of deciding to fight rather than talk, but he controlled it. "As I already said, my lieutenant was operating under orders – _my _orders. I don't know what happened to him, and he's in no state to tell us. But if this Yathai is, by any chance, still alive – if she might have been captured – she may be able to give us more information."

"You may spare yourself the effort, Captain. I am quite sure I already know what happened."

"You do?" The captain straightened in his chair, startled and warily hopeful.

"I'm assuming that if it was a straightforward medical problem, a starship as advanced as yours would have a solution for it. So I'll hazard a guess that on his return, your officer attempted to use your ship's weaponry against us. Since we weren't attacked, he obviously didn't succeed. But ever since, he's been irrational. Insane, even."

Painful as the admission was, there was no point in denial. "Exactly. So what caused it? And how can we cure it?"

Varlahay seemed to sigh. "What happened to your officer is that he was turned into a remotely controlled device." He pointed to the stumps along his cheekbones. "There is only one way for a male of our species to make sure they are utterly immune to temptation by a woman. It is a cost, and a high cost, but for me it was worth it. But for most Merixa, the touching, the joining together, of the _obisteh _is … most intimate. Most pleasurable. Unfortunately, it carries its own dangers. Of which any Merixan male is well aware, and which he will be prepared to counter."

Jon's mouth was dry. "And if this … touching … happened between a Merixan female and a Human?"

"I have not yet had time to study the database you supplied to the Council, Captain, so I cannot say for certain. But it would appear that your species' physiology has very little resistance capability, maybe because you have no obisteh of your own. That would be my informed guess." A look of some pity crossed the disfigured face. "Do not blame your officer, Captain. Once Yathai was close to him, he would have had very little choice, if any."

The possibilities these revelations were opening up were appalling. _Guilty. _ The captain forced himself to think past them. "A cure…. Is there some kind of treatment?"

"Certainly." A wry smile. "Your lieutenant has been turned into a receiver, unable to disconnect from the source. The only 'cure' is for the transmitter to disconnect from him."

"So she's still alive?" The captain seized on that fact. "If she'd been killed in the fighting, that would have ended the control? He'd be okay?"

"If she had been killed, we would not be talking of a cure. He would be a vegetable for the rest of his life."

"Right. So we have to find her–"

"Captain." Varlahay interrupted, his tone perceptibly colder. "This is a world at war, and it is not yours. You no longer have permission to visit. I can appreciate that your initial intentions were good, and that is why I will not be contacting your Starfleet to complain of your interference. But that is the limit of my tolerance."

Jonathan paused for a moment, controlling his shock and anger. "May I ask what your plans are for Weapons Master Yathai?" he asked at last.

"She is a wanted criminal. Furthermore, she now has access to your Starfleet technology, via her link with your officer, and that in itself makes her a serious threat to the peace I intend to make. Her actions against him will be taken into account if she is taken alive, but in all honesty it will make no difference. We will find her eventually, and when we do she will pay the penalty."

"So what you're saying is, I've just got to keep my tactical officer under control awhile and one day he'll just stop functioning and that'll be it!"

"Your tactical officer has committed crimes against the new Government of Javna. Although I accept that his intentions, like yours, may have been good, that does not excuse the nature of his offense. It was a risk he took when he became involved."

"He _became_ _involved _because I ordered him to! To try to protect civilians!"

"Then, Captain, the responsibility for his fate is on your head – not mine. I am sorry." And the link was terminated abruptly.

"Son of a–!" An expression that was more often heard from Trip than from the captain of Earth's first Warp 5-capable starship tore itself from his lips. He instinctively reached out to order Hoshi to try to re-establish the link again, but stopped himself, frowning.

If Varlahay was in earnest, protest would be useless. It would also put him more on his guard.

First he'd go back down to Sickbay again, speak to Phlox and bring him up to speed on the information he'd just obtained. It might well have a bearing on the treatment Malcolm would require.

Then he was going to put the rest of the bridge officers in the picture. He'd had enough of _Enterprise _sitting back and meekly doing nothing.

It was time to call a council of war.

* * *

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	12. Chapter 12

"So you're tellin' us that Malcolm only has till this woman gets caught an' executed, and then he basically dies? And there's nothin' we can do about it?"

Trip, predictably, was the first to break the small, horrified silence after the briefing came to an end.

"There's nothing we can do about it _with their permission,_" the captain corrected him grimly.

"Captain." T'Pol spoke quietly. "President Varlahay has exercised clemency insofar as he has refrained from making a formal complaint to Starfleet against you for interfering in the planet's politics. It may be wise to refrain from offering provocation that might cause him to reconsider that decision."

Ensign Müller, present as Malcolm's deputy, had listened to the account of the situation without speaking. "The sub-commander has a point, _Kapitan_," he said at last, heavily. "To attempt to save civilian lives, as you did – that was understandable. Probably even Starfleet would admit that. But the _leutnant _himself would tell you that he was expendable in that attempt."

Jon was fully aware of that. If Malcolm had been killed in the attack, even if the shuttle had been hit during that frantic escape from Bai, that would have been something he could have accepted, however much he grieved, and whatever guilt he felt. That would have been just one of the risks they ran out here, and which he knew that Malcolm as the ship's tactical officer accepted far more readily than he did. This, though … this was _avoidable. _Potentially, at least. Everything depended on how long Yathai survived, and whether she could be taken alive; whether, too, she could be persuaded to release her victim from her control if they managed to do so. Considering what she'd cold-bloodedly done to him, that was by no means inevitable. She couldn't have given a damn about his suffering when she'd taken him over.

He'd told Phlox about what he'd learned regarding the nature of the assault – for assault, he now believed it must have been. It explained Malcolm's compulsive need to wash himself, to clean off the filth of what had been done to him. It also went far towards explaining the self-harm, especially if he was still experiencing the coercion to obey orders completely contrary to his duty and his training. As for 'Guilty', at a guess that was just Malcolm being Malcolm: any failure to resist the smallest temptation – and if Yathai was the lovely woman he'd seen him talking with at the reception, then any normal man would be tempted if she made a pass at him – would plunge him into a bloodbath of self-recrimination.

This, though, would remain strictly confidential. He'd told his remaining bridge officers merely that the lieutenant had been attacked, and that it had entailed his mind being taken over – resulting in his attempt to embroil the ship in the war down on the planet. T'Pol had looked at him narrowly but said nothing.

"How is Lieutenant Reed now, Sir?" Travis's question jerked him from these dark reflections.

The captain winced. This was another sore point.

His tactical officer was now locked in the Brig.

Phlox had been correct in that being allowed to shower had gone some way towards calming the Englishman enough to speak – albeit only a couple of short, frantic, broken bursts, like a malfunctioning machine gun. During one of these, he'd ordered that he be locked away, for the safety of the ship. No, his quarters were not good enough; he had access to a computer there. _"Protect _Enterprise_,"_ he'd said desperately, slurring the words as though the muscles in his mouth were no longer working properly. _"Protect from me."_

It seemed that Yathai was allowing him a little bit of run on the leash. Moments later, however, he'd choked into silence and withdrawal again; doubtless she'd yanked the chain tight, bringing him back to heel. Once more his bio-signs had soared into the danger readings, so that the doctor had needed to give him another dose of sedative, regardless of the danger from this repeated dosing.

The captain had never seen the Denobulan so angry.

"We had to confine him," Jon now admitted. "The doc's monitoring him, but it wasn't safe to keep him in Sickbay. Malcolm ordered us to put him in the Brig. Phlox didn't want to - said it wouldn't be safe, but in the end it was the only way to get Malcolm to calm down."

"Sir, isn't that–" Travis hesitated, but plowed on bravely. "I mean, if he knows what's going on …? Especially if she knows he's had himself locked up? The war's over. It seems kind of pointless carrying on. Maybe she'll just let him go when she finally admits to herself they've lost. Or even when she gets captured."

"From the reports we have been monitoring, Ensign, First Minister Hirgev is also among those still unaccounted for," T'Pol told him. "From what I witnessed when Mister Reed and I were on the planet, she and Weapons Master Yathai may well be in some kind of relationship. It is entirely possible that they may be in hiding together, awaiting their chance to escape. When the moment comes, it could be extremely useful to have an officer available who could be forced to once again attempt to intervene on their behalf, if the chance offers. Of course, we have no evidence that this is their intention, or even if they are still together. But it is a logical theory, and we cannot ignore the danger."

"Do we have any idea what would happen if we left orbit? Maybe – maybe her control couldn't reach that far. Then she'd just _have _to let go."

Everyone contemplated that suggestion. It had merit, but it also carried risks. However loathsome the concept might be, Malcolm was currently hooked to something that kept him functioning. The results if he was forcibly removed from it could not be guaranteed. T'Pol voiced this opinion, and the captain seconded it, shaking his head regretfully.

So far, Hoshi had said nothing. Although she had listened closely, she had seemed slightly distracted. Now, however, she looked up and caught the captain's gaze, lifting her hand slightly to indicate she had something to say. He nodded encouragingly, but she seemed surprisingly reluctant to begin.

"Sir, there's something I don't know if I should mention," she said at last. "It might have nothing at all to do with any of this."

"Well, we won't know until you tell us what it is." He spoke patiently. "If it's not, no harm done."

"It's – the Comm station, sir. It's … humming."

"You mean it has some kind of technical fault?"

"No, sir. I've run every diagnostic check we have. The thing is, it even happens when the board's completely disconnected. I can't explain it."

"That's not possible." Even in the midst of a discussion on quite a different topic, Trip was instantly intrigued and concerned by any technical issue that bore on the ship's proper functioning. "Is it constant? When did you first notice it?"

"No. It … stops and starts. It's really faint; at first I thought I was imagining it. It started just after the call from the surface, earlier on. And it keeps happening. Every once in a while, there isn't a regular pattern to it."

"Could it be some form of external scanning?" asked Müller, frowning.

"I don't think so. I'm wondering," and she hesitated again, "I'm wondering now if it could be some kind of signal."

"Trip, T'Pol, get on it," ordered Jon. "Check out the comm station and analyze this 'signal' if it happens again. And I want everyone to see what ideas we can come up with for dealing with the situation in the meantime. So, unless anyone has anything else to contribute, the meeting's over."

Apparently nobody had. The conference broke up. Ensign Müller departed to the Armory, just to check in person that everything there was running smoothly; and everyone else returned to the Bridge, to investigate the mysterious phenomenon of Hoshi's 'humming' Comm station.

* * *

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	13. Chapter 13

Well, this was kind of embarrassing.

To say the least.

Trip had gone over every circuit in the entire assembly, testing and inspecting. T'Pol had run the diagnostics a second time, checking the results through her own board. Everything checked out absolutely fine. And even when the captain ordered absolute silence on the Bridge, with the engines temporarily powered down completely and every instrument shut off that could be, there wasn't a sound. Not so much as the ghost of that soft, perplexing humming sound that even she with her ultra-sensitive hearing had only just become aware of.

The silence stretched. Hoshi glared at her board. She could hear the careful, light breathing of everyone on the Bridge, trying not to block out what could be some unlikely avenue of hope. She could feel the captain, standing a couple of feet away from her, concentrating all his attention on her, wanting her, almost _willing_ her, to say she could hear it.

She couldn't.

"Sir, I…"

_Rrrrrr. Rrr. Rrrrrrrrrrrr. Rrrrrr._

The smallest, the tiniest of vibrations, as though a moth were sitting on the console and fanning its wings.

T'Pol had set up a monitor specially, with a sensor attached to the console. The PADD at the other end of the wire suddenly sprang to life, displaying a recorded signal.

"Get a trace on that." The captain hardly breathed the command, but his XO nodded and turned immediately to her board to set up the scanners.

_Rr. Rrrr. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Rr. Rr. Rrrrrr._

Silence.

Everyone on the Bridge started breathing again.

T'Pol turned around from her viewscreen. "It originated on the planet," she stated calmly.

"Did you get a location?" demanded the captain.

Hoshi could have sworn the Vulcan looked slightly embarrassed.

"No, captain."

He frowned, clearly confused. "Why not? Did you need more time?"

The look of vexation became more pronounced. "Because according to the scanners, the signal was not coming from anywhere." If she'd been human, the pause would definitely have been for dramatic effect. "It was coming from _everywhere."_

* * *

By the time her lunch break arrived, Hoshi still hadn't been able to make any sense of the recording. They'd all agreed it must consist of some kind of a language, and three more 'messages' had arrived in the meantime, variations on the theme – all faithfully recorded on the PADD and downloaded for dissection, both by the UT and by the best comms officer in the Fleet. She'd put them side by side for comparison, she'd superimposed one on another, she'd tried picking out patterns or similarities, she'd tried reversing them or altering the speed or interchanging the blocks of 'text' to make something even faintly comprehensible, and nothing had worked.

It remained an exasperating, impenetrable mystery. Someone, or something, was making something happen to her communications console, presumably in the attempt to convey something, and she – the ship's linguist – couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Captain Archer had been very patient. He'd left her alone to puzzle over it, but she'd been conscious of his occasional glances in her direction. He didn't need to remind her that time was a finite resource, and every minute that passed reduced those that Lieutenant Reed had left. The Merixan forces would be consolidating their grip, beginning the search for survivors and … war criminals.

Maybe when this Yathai was found, Ichexic Varlahay would do the Captain the politeness of notifying him. So far, there had been no question asked as to why the ship hadn't moved on; they probably understood that the visitors were hamstrung by the plight of their officer, and would be unwilling to move before there was some resolution. At a guess, a court-martial down there wouldn't take long. After all, there was no lack of evidence, and they probably had more than enough witnesses. Maybe they wouldn't bother with a Counsel for the Defense. Maybe they wouldn't even bother with a trial at all.

Seated at the table in the Mess, Hoshi imagined the tall, lovely Merixan woman in the long green dress being taken out for execution, into what had been the beautiful gardens where the reception for Starfleet had been laid out. She hadn't looked cruel then, but cruel she must have been to attack Malcolm and turn him into her cat's-paw. Maybe not cruel, though. Maybe just desperate. Maybe you did strange things, things you'd never ordinarily dream of doing, when you were in love….

At a guess, they'd tell the captain when the execution was scheduled to take place. She wondered how it would be dealt with on board the ship, if no way could be found to carry out a rescue. Would they tell Malcolm, give him time to prepare himself? Or maybe they'd just keep him sedated, so when it … happened … he wouldn't know.

She didn't know what the arrangements were for a member of Starfleet who was left in a permanent coma.

_PVS_, that was the term. 'Persistent Vegetative State'. He'd have to be returned to Earth, but what then? Would he be kept alive, even when there was no hope? Or would they withdraw life support, so that he just naturally slipped away? At a guess, the decision would be left to his parents; and considering that Mr. and Mrs. Reed hadn't even been able to tell the captain what their son's favorite food was, it was stretching the bounds of probability that they'd want him kept alive.

She thought of him lying still and silent on a sterile hospital bed in a sterile room, hooked up to artificial nourishment until his fate was decided. The well-kept hands that were so deft over the moves on the chess board or so deadly with a phase pistol would lie motionless on the covers; the gray eyes that could glint with subtle humor or gleam with determination would be closed, as lifeless as the brain behind them.

He would never, ever, have wanted to live like that.

"I guess they're still not making any sense." Travis dropped into the seat beside her, and nodded in the direction of the four PADDs lined up neatly on the table.

When she didn't reply immediately, he looked a little closer.

"Hey." Unobtrusively, he put a hand on hers. "You'll work it out. I'm sure you'll do it."

"I'm sure not getting anywhere so far." She blinked valiantly a couple of times and stared at the screens, still displaying their unintelligible patterns. "Somebody's gone to all this trouble to send this, and nobody can find out what they're saying. It may be someone offering to help. Whatever it is, I _have _to decipher it!"

"It may be just some natural phenomenon," the helmsman said gently. "You're assuming there _is _a pattern in there. That doesn't mean there is one. Maybe there's some, some quality in the comms console that acts as a resonator for some particular kind of vibration the planet produces naturally. I don't know and neither do you. You just might be stressing yourself out for nothing."

"I won't believe that!" she flared. "It means something. I _know_ it means something!" With agitated rapidity she switched the PADDs around. It didn't help.

Wisely, he said nothing, but watched her uselessly going through the various matrices. After a moment however, he sat forward and lifted a hand. "Wait a minute."

Her fingers froze on the buttons. Had he seen something she hadn't?

"Are we looking at this from the wrong angle?" he asked.

"Which angle do you think we should be looking at it from?"

He pointed at the PADDs. "Like I said, you're assuming this makes sense. What if it _doesn't _– if it's not meant to? What if it's somebody trying to get our attention without alerting the Merixa – trying to get us to talk, without them overhearing? Like someone throwing gravel at your window to get you to open the door, without waking anyone else in the house?"

"You think that might be all it is?" She stared at the devices in despair. How was she to go and tell Captain Archer that?

"Hoshi. We've all been concentrating on the message. Maybe we ought to be concentrating on the _messenger_."

"But T'Pol said there _was _no messenger, didn't you hear her? She said it was – she said it was coming from 'everywhere' on the planet!"

"Then by definition, if we go _somewhere _on the planet, we'll be in the right place to find whoever's sending it!" He beamed at her. "Because 'everywhere' has to include 'somewhere', doesn't it?"

* * *

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	14. Chapter 14

"Right. We have to go back to the planet."

It had clearly taken something of an effort for Captain Archer to accept the fact that even the best linguist in the Fleet simply couldn't make sense of the messages, but as soon as he realized that the 'handful of gravel' theory was entirely plausible, he quickly assented to Travis's suggestion that the next option was to seek out the messenger – whoever it was, to continue the metaphor, who was 'throwing the gravel.'

Hoshi felt some of the tension in her shoulders melt away. As always, as long as the captain had some avenue for action he could cope. It was enforced inaction that goaded him.

The bridge officers were gathered in the Situation Room after lunch. Nobody, it seemed, had managed to come up with any other suggestion, so this was the one they were going to have to go with.

"This may be difficult. President Varlahay specifically informed you that you no longer have permission to visit," T'Pol reminded him.

The captain nodded, his brow darkening. "So we find a reason for me to argue."

* * *

"I have Ichexic Varlahay for you, sir."

The new Merixan head of state appeared on the viewscreen again, looking mildly irritated.

He'd washed and changed, but was in the middle of a meeting. It had taken all of Hoshi's determination, charm and powers of persuasion to finally coax each of the officials placed specifically to keep outsiders from bothering him unnecessarily into conceding that this was a call he really needed to take. She listened anxiously, hoping against hope that he would be as keen for good relations with Starfleet as the previous head of the Council had been.

He didn't waste time on pleasantries. "Captain Archer. I believe that you and I are already fully aware of each other's situation, and mine is non-negotiable. I hope there's some good reason for your insistence on speaking to me."

"I apologize for taking up your time, sir, I appreciate how important it is." The captain's tone was firm, but deferential enough to disguise the underlying note of irony unless you knew him far better than the Merixa did. "On reflection, I realize your attitude with regard to our 'interference' is completely understandable. I'm not here to argue that point."

"Hmm." Varlahay seemed to relax slightly. "I regret that this will involve the loss of a valuable member of your crew. Please send our condolences to his family."

"I'm sure they'll appreciate your courtesy. However, it's on their behalf that I need to ask a favor of you."

The amber eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid clemency for Weapons Master Yathai is out of the question."

"I appreciate that, sir. It's just that – I've been informed that all members of his Earth clan carry a special token, a … an item that they believe links them to their home and family. If they lose it, they lose their honor as a member of the clan. The family can accept his death, but they couldn't accept his loss of honor." Captain Archer's tone dropped a fraction, became confidential and slightly entreating. "It wasn't on him when we sedated him, and we can't find it anywhere on the ship. We could only think it must have been lost during his … meeting with the Weapons Master. We've been sending specially modified scanner bursts towards the ruins in Bai, and we think we've found it. So I'd like to ask your permission to pick it up, so that when Lieutenant Reed eventually dies his family can bury him with his clan honor intact."

"We had noted some kind of activity between your ship and the surface," said Varlahay coldly. "It would perhaps have been more polite to ask before you instigated this search of yours."

The captain bent his head humbly, accepting the rebuke. "I appreciate that, sir. But knowing how busy you were, it seemed pointless to disturb you if we couldn't find it to begin with."

The ichexic considered briefly and then nodded. "Very well, captain. You have permission to send down a representative. But he will land at co-ordinates we transmit to you, and his activities will be monitored by our personnel. He will be allowed to remove nothing whatsoever except this … token, after its nature has been verified by my representative. And as soon as he has it, he will leave at once."

"There will have to be three people in the shuttlepod, sir. I'm informed that according to the custom, the token can only be handled by Lieutenant Reed's senior officer without being defiled. Unfortunately, Commander Tucker has to prepare himself for the occasion, so I have to have him flown down by a pilot. And our communications officer Ensign Sato has to be present to offer the appropriate prayers in the clan dialect."

At the Science station, fortunately out of view of the transmission camera, T'Pol was wearing an expression that mingled resignation and distaste. It was probably just as well that Malcolm's father wasn't privileged to hear this farrago either, thought Hoshi, suppressing a wry, involuntary grin. He'd probably have thrown a fit.

"Commander Tucker will need to locate the object himself, as the only person allowed to handle it," added the captain quickly. "The other two officers will be ordered to remain in the vicinity of the shuttlepod."

Varlahay exhaled, looking almost as disgusted as T'Pol, though for different reasons. "I would have thought, Captain, that a civilization as advanced as yours would have outgrown these archaic superstitions. However, Lieutenant Reed's family should not be made to suffer for his – and your – misdeeds. I agree to your request. However, I warn you, should any of your landing party deviate from the agreement, they are liable to be shot. Please make sure they understand that."

"My officers obey my orders to the letter," said Captain Archer quietly. "They will do exactly what I order them to. As long as your officers do the same, there should be no reason for any shooting."

"Then, Captain, the occasion should pass without incident. Your shuttlepod will be expected to land precisely at the place we specify, and if it tries to land anywhere else it will be fired on. You will receive the transmission of the appropriate co-ordinates shortly. Good day to you." And once again, the link was cut off abruptly.

Trip, too, had remained safely out of view beside the Engineering station, and now stepped forward with a look of unmistakable gleeful admiration. "He bought it!"

The captain sat down in his chair. "They never told me I'd end up telling fairy stories when I signed up to Starfleet."

A winking light on the comms board signaled the arrival of a set of co-ordinates. Ichexic Varlahay evidently didn't waste time.

"Right, the 'pod's ready to go. I got Rostov to prep it while I was sendin' all of those fake transporter beams down, as well as the one with that 'lucky charm' Anna knocked up for us. Just as well the stuff Starfleet lets us disseminate doesn't mention our transporter technology." Trip grinned, the dancing look he always wore when he was setting off on an adventure. "If we pull this off, I'm gonna make Malcolm carry that thing for the rest of his duty on _Enterprise._"

"We're not out of the woods yet, Trip." Captain Archer looked at him warningly. "They'll be keeping a damn close eye on you, so mind you don't put a foot out of line. I don't want any of you coming back in a body bag."

"I'll make sure of that, Cap'n. I'll just take my time findin' the charm, and keep attention away from Travis and Hoshi. And let's hope whoever it is who's been tryin' to get our attention takes the chance to introduce themselves."

"It's the only chance we have. Get going. We don't know how much longer it's going to take them to find Weapons Master Yathai down there. Just look after yourselves."

Trip nodded. Hoshi stood up quickly at the glance she'd been waiting for, and Travis, equally eager, rose to his feet. It had been agreed that the more personnel down there, the better the chance of receiving some kind of communication, but three was the most that could plausibly be managed.

As the two of them followed Trip into the turbo-lift, Travis looked sideways at her and gave her a big encouraging wink.

It might not be much of a chance. But it was all they had, and they were taking it.

* * *

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	15. Chapter 15

The sunlight was merciless as Travis brought the shuttlepod down at a steep angle towards the co-ordinates the Merixa had sent.

He'd known what to expect, but the reality was just so – _awful._

The city below was Bai, but it bore virtually no resemblance to the beautiful place that they'd admired so short a time ago. Not even a kindly cloud-shadow obscured the ruin that the assault had left.

They'd seen it from the ship, of course, but somehow that had been different. The soaring spires, the airy towers, the elegant buildings in their green gardens, and the beautiful parks with their paths meandering among the bright pools – all gone, leaving nothing but a sea of wreckage and rubble. Perhaps the only bright spot in the whole sorry tale was that none of the weapons used had been nuclear, or had contained toxic or chemical warheads. Insofar as any war could be described as 'clean', this had been about as clean as it could possibly be. Maybe, just maybe, some element of sense had prevailed. The Merixa had destroyed each other, they'd destroyed their cities, but they hadn't destroyed their environment. As high as the cost had been, they still had the possibility of resurrection.

In the effort to lend verisimilitude to the pretense they were carrying out, Trip had hurriedly donned his dress uniform on the way down and Hoshi had wrapped herself in the voluminous crimson folds of Crewman Sardesai's borrowed sari; red was apparently the Merixan color of mourning, and the comm officer owned nothing appropriate in that color. Glancing at the result, Travis hid a smile. Akuti had done her best to explain how the garment was worn, but they hadn't had time to practice. As a result, the finished result was … well, the Merixa wouldn't know any different.

A contingent of soldiers was waiting for them beside the appointed landing place. Stumps of shattered trees stood sentinel, the only indication that this was the garden where the outdoor reception had taken place. The smooth lawn was now a sea of mud, cratered where shells had hit.

The shuttlepod settled smoothly enough in one of the few still level areas. Travis switched off the engines and glanced back at Trip, who rose from his seat, pulling his dress jacket down into perfect neatness. Now that the moment was here, it was obvious enough that the chief engineer was fully aware of the weight of the responsibility he bore. They might have gotten the chance to come down here through Captain Archer's ability to play-act, and they might have to do some of their own before this was over, but what was resting on this was no joke. And everything depended on whether this theory of his about the signaling was right, or whether it had indeed been some incredibly complex code or language that had simply been beyond their ability to understand. If the latter was true, then coming here was not only dangerous but pointless, and they had wasted what might be their only opportunity to revisit the planet and prevent what was otherwise the inevitable outcome.

Trip glanced over at him and Hoshi, and flashed a brief, strained smile. "I'll drag it out as long as I can. But I don't think they'll buy me takin' too long, so it may not be as long as I'd like. Good luck, you two." And he activated the door control, blinked for a moment in the sudden flood of brilliant sunshine as the door lifted, and stepped outside, switching on both the UT he carried and the scanner that had been carefully programmed to give faulty readings until a specific correction code was entered. There was a short exchange of voices and then footsteps moved away, though the shuttlepod's internal scanners, which were neither faulty nor switched off, showed that two more armed Merixa were positioned a few meters from the doorway and showed no inclination to move.

"Well, this is it," said Travis in a low voice. "Let's hope whoever or whatever it is decides to take the chance."

Beside him, Hoshi turned on the UT and sat absolutely still. She looked utterly unfamiliar in the sari, and surprisingly sensual with her silky black hair loose and tumbling around her shoulders, but all he could notice were her eyes, dilated with strain.

The two of them sat in total silence for about two minutes. Every external and internal microphone and sensor was turned up to maximum, tuned to cancel out their bio-signs but pick up any other sound. Even the breathing of the two soldiers outside was audible at first, till Travis carefully programmed that out too. He didn't know what he was expecting, or even hoping for. Something that was capable of sending a transmission from 'all over' a planet had to be something enormously large, or enormously powerful, or possibly both. It was rather like waiting for a message from God, he thought with a nervous quiver of laughter. Better hope that it wasn't _too _loud, or with everything turned up to maximum they'd most likely both be deafened.

What they got was somewhat of an anti-climax.

There was a flurry of wings and a burst of squeaking, and a flock of colorful birdlike creatures flew in through the open door and landed all around the shuttlepod interior. Some of them perched on the chairs, one attached itself to the largest wall-mounted display and began tapping at its reflection, while a couple of others circled around the interior, piping excitedly. Several landed on the consoles and began interestedly investigating the buttons.

Normally a visit from the local wildlife – and surprisingly tame and colorful wildlife at that – would have enchanted both of the officers. Now, however, all Travis could envisage was delicate instrumentation being damaged, while Hoshi was evidently appalled by the prospect of any whispered message being completely drowned out by the noisy, nosy, long-necked little critters who'd arrived quite without invitation and showed no disposition to leave, even when both of their hosts began flapping frantically at them in the effort to shoo them out again.

One, the smallest but also, it seemed the boldest, had landed right on top of the co-pilot's chair Trip had vacated. It was a pretty enough little creature, if you'd been minded to notice that sort of thing, which neither of them were right now. Its cream-colored feathers had a luminous blue sheen, which produced a fan of radiance as it fluttered its wings wildly in the effort to keep its balance.

"Hey, little guy, it's not that we don't like you all," said Travis, nerving himself to catch hold of the thing; maybe if he could get one out, the rest would follow. "It's just that we're kind of waiting for something, right? Maybe another time."

He looked carefully at the creature as he brought his hand close to it, trying to think how would be best to hold it, if it sat still long enough for him to make a grab; he wouldn't want to hurt it. It was cute enough, sort of a cross between a bird and a very, very tiny dragon. It lifted its crest at him and looked at his fingers like it was thinking about biting them. Its mouth was shut so he couldn't tell if it had teeth, but he imagined that if it had they'd be very, very small and very, very sharp – like a mouthful of needles. He'd feel so pathetic going to Phlox to be inoculated after being bitten by a tiny little dragon. Maybe he'd just risk all the nasty diseases and spare himself the embarrassment.

Just before he nerved himself to make the grab, the dragon-bird preempted it by jumping on to his forearm. He was so startled he sat back in the seat, and as he'd been slewed sideways in it he nearly fell out of it. He clutched at the console to steady himself as the dragon ran up his arm, feathered wings wide to balance itself. Thinking it was going for his face, he let go of the console and threw up his other arm to protect his eyes, but it stopped with one foot resting on his chest; he could feel the minute pressure of it, resting just opposite his collar bone.

_You are waiting for us._

–What–?

_You are waiting for us._

After a moment's incredulous silence he lowered his arm. Hoshi was staring at him and at the dragon-bird as though her eyes were going to fall out of her head.

"Tell me you heard that too," he pleaded.

_We want you to leave. Our Wingless are not grown enough yet. We can protect them from the worst of their own foolishness until they learn, but we must protect others too. Our Wingless are our responsibility._

"It was … it was _you _who contacted the ship?" whispered Hoshi, who evidently could indeed hear the same voiceless words in her head that he could.

In response, the creature sat up and stretched its neck. So did all the others. An instant later, they were all producing an unmistakable humming sound low in their throats. _Rrrrr. Rrrrrrrrrrr. Rrr. _The sensors which had been programmed to trace sound on that frequency beeped sharply.

The demonstration lasted only a few seconds, then the 'spokesdragon' settled down again with a shake of its wings and stared intently at Travis.

_We do not want them to know about us. They must learn from us, not knowing. Kindness, for a thing other than oneself … it is difficult for them. But there has been progress. Certainly, progress._ The voice became sharper. _Tell other Wingless not to come here, even if they are asked. The danger is too great. One day, perhaps. but not yet._

"Who _are _you?" breathed Travis.

_We are … ourself? _There was a note of puzzlement, as though the question had never been posed before. _We were long before the Wingless. They are only children. They lash out, unthinking, and when the damage is beyond what they intended, they do not understand. It is a thing that they will outgrow, in time, if we protect them._

The helmsman exchanged looks of complete bewilderment with his companion. It was completely unbelievable to hear a weird-looking miniature feathery dragon describe an advanced, warp-flight-capable humanoid species as some kind of sophisticated pet, for whose juvenile bad behavior excuses had to be made.

_Your Wingless outside has discovered the thing he sent down in the light, _the voice said quickly. _We will show you where the Wingless are whom you seek. You will have to persuade Yathai, or the thing she has done will endure as a poison for which there is no cure. _It ran lightly across his chest and onto the console, and looked out through the right-hand side of the curving windscreen. _Outside the city, over there, there are the ruins of a building where grain was once stored. Hirgev caused a hiding place to be built in it long ago, fearing such days as these might come again. It has kept them safe, but will not do for long. The net is closing._

"But – how will we get there?" asked Travis. "These people aren't going to give us permission to come back down, no matter what."

_When the sun sets across Bai this evening, our Wingless will find their instruments malfunction. _The rest of the flock took off suddenly, screeching, and flew around the shuttlepod's interior just once before settling on one of the instrument panels in a flapping, heaving, multicolored heap. _They will tolerate us. We are just another flock of _ake'ahe, _being foolish, after all. They know that the enemy has been defeated and you have accepted your loss, and in a very little while we will move on, and the sensors will work again._

"Why – why won't you just talk to them?" asked Hoshi. "You could teach them so much better if you'd just explain things to them."

_They must achieve their own wisdom for themselves. Only in that way will it be a thing they value and believe in. _And with that, the dragon-bird launched itself into the air, and the rest followed, piping shrilly as like a comet of gaudy parrots they zoomed out of the hatch and up into the blue sky.

* * *

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	16. Chapter 16

Give the Merixa credit, they showed the appropriate respect, thought Travis, watching Trip step slowly and carefully back up to the shuttlepod, the hastily-crafted 'charm' held ceremoniously before him on T'Pol's meditation cushion. They formed a type of honor guard around him, and stood solemn and unmoving when Hoshi met him at the hatch and launched into a recitation of the English National Anthem, delivered in an obscure Andorian dialect with all the panache she could muster. For the sake of diplomacy they had the UT switched on, but this particular dialect wasn't programmed into it, and would therefore sound appropriately arcane to the listening Merixa.

Fortunately, Trip was able to keep his countenance. His face remained solemn as the ship's comms officer stood in the doorway, dressed in a shambles of a sari, and declaimed lengthy phrases in some unknown language over the palm-sized duranium 'R' sitting in state on the cushion in his hands. Though he let out a single choking sound as the hatch finally swung shut behind him.

Hopefully, if they heard it at all the Merixa would think he was overcome by the emotion of the occasion.

As the shuttlepod lifted into the sky, Trip leaned backwards on the secondary crew chair and finished being overcome by the emotion of the occasion. Considering he was fully aware of the seriousness of the situation, it was probably nervous tension far more than any real amusement that set him snickering.

"Well, we got away with it," he said, as the silver shape of the ship came into view in the distance at last. "Tell me it was worth it, Hoshi. Did someone contact ya?"

"You're not going to believe it, sir," said Travis, seeing his fellow-ensign glance at him with unmistakable appeal. "There were these little animals with wings, like lizards with feathers…"

"Met a couple of 'em," commented Trip tolerantly, picking a tiny, brilliantly orange feather off his dress uniform. "Kinda tame, I figured they might have been somebody's pets."

"…well, it turns out _they _were the ones who were trying to get our attention."

The chief engineer fairly goggled at him, the feather forgotten for a moment. "Are you _serious?_"

* * *

The captain took a bit of convincing, when the landing party emerged into the landing bay and the story was related to him. T'Pol, surprisingly enough, seemed slightly less dubious.

"It would appear we are dealing with a collective consciousness," she observed. "If these are the same creatures that the Merixa believe to be their 'pets', it is unlikely that any one individual would have the brain capacity to reason and behave in this way."

"So the _Merixa _are the 'pets', if anything," mused the captain.

"It wasn't quite like that, sir," said Hoshi. "They sounded like they thought of the Merixa more as – well, as naughty children, who just need some time and patience."

"Sort of protective," Travis put in, feeling this needed amplification. "But not soft. They said Lieutenant Reed's death would be 'a poison for which there is no cure.' Maybe they mean between Javna and Starfleet, if the circumstances are ever right for us to go back there."

"Fascinating," said T'Pol. "It's regrettable that circumstances are hardly likely to permit us to make contact with them. I recall no evidence in the Vulcan database of any world with such a species on it."

The helmsman shook his head. "I got the impression they just wanted us to leave well alone for now. Who knows? Maybe one day they'll feel it's safer to have visitors. In the meantime, they just want us to get out of Dodge in one piece."

"Well, I'm with them there." Captain Archer gazed at Hoshi's sari, which was slipping rapidly even further out of control. "Uh, how about you get changed and give that back to Crewman Sardesai, and then we'll meet up for a full report and decide where we go from here?"

"Yes, sir," the comm officer said with a relieved grin. Then, the smile vanishing abruptly, she asked, "Is … is there any news about Lieutenant Reed?"

"No change, I'm afraid. It's not good." From the tone, Travis realized how worn his commanding officer was by the situation; there was a deep groove incised between the captain's brows, and he looked exhausted. "They're still securing the country around Bai, from what we can overhear – there's still some resistance. But I don't think it'll be much longer till they start hunting in earnest. They know who's still not accounted for, and they'll want to finish the job. Some of the council have already been taken…" He trailed off, shutting his eyes.

"…And were executed within two hours of capture," T'Pol finished flatly. "We dare not expect that others will be treated differently. We have days, maybe only hours, depending on how well hidden the women are."

"I'll get changed as fast as I can," said Hoshi.

"Good. We'll meet up in my Ready Room in ten minutes." The captain and first officer walked up the stairs and disappeared from view, doubtless on their way back to the Bridge; Trip went back into the shuttlepod, to fetch the cushion and its purportedly significant burden, probably with the intention of taking the former back to T'Pol's quarters and keeping the latter in hope of one day being able to tease his English buddy with it.

Travis eyed Hoshi thoughtfully as she walked away. She was very pale, but there was a set look on her face that sat strangely there. He strongly suspected that she was getting riled, and if she was in that kind of a mood he didn't envy anyone who got in her way.

Hoshi was one of the highlights of his life aboard _Enterprise. _It hadn't taken them long to make friends, and to discover that they shared a passion for practical jokes. Everybody from Trip downwards (well, almost everybody – the head of the Armory was not included on the hit list) had been fair game. As long as none of this interfered with the safe running of the ship, and was confined to those who would appreciate it, Captain Archer tolerated it, just as he would anything that fostered good morale. They'd occasionally wondered rather daringly whether they might actually try one on him one of the days, but never quite gotten up the nerve yet.

But though they got on so well and he wasn't blind to the fact of how extremely pretty she was, there was no spark of romantic attraction between them. He felt more like her sibling than a potential lover, and was pretty sure she felt the same about him. They laughed together and worked together and plotted together, and he had far more fun with her than he'd ever had with Paul, who was his sibling for real, but he'd sometimes wondered with no more than brotherly indulgence how soon it would be before she was breaking somebody's heart on board ship.

It hadn't happened. He'd never seen any sign of more than playful flirting, the sort of thing that makes life on a long voyage bearable, but lately there had been … well. Just now and again, things that sort of suggested …

The utter unsuitability of Lieutenant Reed as a target for practical jokes had originally led to the Englishman earning a certain amount of slightly barbed humor behind his back. It hadn't been anything malicious, because they both sincerely respected him as an officer, but anyone with that amount of dignity was just too tempting not to be the target for the occasional dig.

Lately, however, the digs had ceased – from Hoshi's side at least, and any that Travis ventured fell on stony ground. And occasionally, glancing up discreetly from the helm station, he'd seen a gaze that should have been fixed on the comms board fixed across at Tactical, where the dark head was bent as always over weapons checks and the ceaseless scan for anything that might threaten the safety of the ship.

His Boomer upbringing had left Travis extremely clued up about relationships on board ship. He was also acutely observant, and the indications, small as they were, were beginning to look like they might just start adding up to something bigger.

They weren't enough to base any definite conclusions on. And so far there was nothing else. He worried some, that she might have developed … well, if you wanted to find the least suitable person to … hell, Malcolm Reed was a nice enough guy once you got past the duranium plating, but …

Well, whatever the situation was, they didn't have time to worry about it now. And she sure wouldn't welcome his curiosity, that was for sure. He watched her turn right and disappear at the next junction of the corridor, already starting to tug at the voluminous folds of the sari, and sighed to himself.

He'd thought she'd be the one to do the heart breaking.

Not vice versa.

* * *

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	17. Chapter 17

It was cold, here in the cellar.

At least they'd found some old rotten sacks there, thrown carelessly down the stairs to be cut up some day and used for stuffing a mattress. There were enough to pile on the filthy floor to make a bed of sorts, which was needed urgently now. Up above it was warm still, but down here in the gloom it was cold, and Hirgev was in labour.

It was too early, but not critically so. The infant might well survive the birth, but probably not much longer if they could find no better shelter. Yathai, administering sips of stale water she'd collected from the remnants of an old rain barrel to moisten her lover's mouth, was conscious once again of the knife-twist of anguish, that all this would be for nothing.

Defeat had been inevitable. She had known that as soon as she'd studied the figures, had calculated the odds. Whoever it had been who had masterminded the rebellion, she could salute him for his strategy at least; he deserved his victory and would make a fine ichexic. She mouthed the term wryly, tasting the strangeness of the male form of the word. Hirgev had gone by the title 'ichexin', but that was in the past; now she was just another casualty of the war, and it was probably the danger and fear of their escape that had brought on labour prematurely. They had no drugs, no doctor, and no hope; not even clean water to drink or clean wrappings in which to enfold the baby when it arrived.

She had thought herself inured to defeat. Not until it stared her in the face as it was doing now had she realised how utterly impossible it was to accept finally and utterly that it was over.

Only one thing could have made a difference. She had made her bid, had snared the Starfleet officer and turned him into her puppet, repaying his careful, formal kindness with treachery. In a war, one did what one must and used whatever weapons were available; and besides, he was a man, and one of The Enemy. Was she to weaken now, because he smiled at her and wished her good fortune in a battle she was bound to lose? Hirgev had said that all men were alike, and that they had no concept of honour; had demanded whether she would place her own kind's supremacy, their very freedom, at risk because of some senseless scruple regarding an alien's feelings? An alien, and a male to boot?

Of course, such a thing had been unthinkable. And yet the attack on him, so easy in conception and so difficult in realisation, had been far more complex than she had expected. It should have been simple, and it had not been. Her own emotions had been so ferocious and so confused that nothing had gone quite as planned. She had not expected to be excited by the sensation of his body against hers, nor to feel shame and something horribly close to pity; so close, indeed, that once the bond was locked on to his brain she'd had to look away so as not to see the fear and horror printed on his face as he realised what was happening.

Still, he was stronger than she had thought. He had resisted, and that had made her hurt as well as angry; she knew that he desired her, so why did he make things more difficult for both of them? His defeat, however, was inevitable. The planet's low gravity compared to that of his own world meant that his natural physical strength was slightly increased, but a mild drug in that carefully staged water had taken care of that. Part of his mind was protected behind steel walls that he slammed down against her, but she could seize enough of it for her purposes. Enough to make him helpless to disobey her commands when he returned to his _Enterprise_, so that but for the vigilance of one of his colleagues – at a guess, that too-observant Vulcan – the might of the ship's weaponry would have been unleashed in defence of the city.

It was useless to speculate in what way the deception had been detected. She had thought that she had been deft enough to temporarily suppress most of his memories, but evidently something had gone awry. He had come close – so close! – to firing the ship's weapons, but she had received some confused impression of shock and pain, and then darkness. She had allowed the connection to lapse for the time being, knowing her stratagem was exposed and now useless; though she held it in reserve still, in hope that somehow it might yet serve her.

If she had succeeded, it would not have won the war. But it might have won them time, time to organise resistance a little better, to undermine The Enemy's superiority – and it might even have made their foes believe, however erroneously, that the Starfleet visitors had been recruited into the ranks of the defenders. The thought of being now pitted against such manifestly superior technology (for no doubt they would have been observing the starship for themselves) would have given them pause, if no more.

"It was worth the try." Hirgev's voice made her jump; it had been so long since her soul-mate had had any breath or any thought to spare for anything other than the slow torment of labour without so much as a mouthful of warmed wine.

Yathai lifted her eyes to her quickly, ashamed that her thoughts must have shown so nakedly on her face.

"It was not difficult," the other woman went on with an arduous huff of a laugh. "After all these years, my own, I know you well enough." She shifted, groaning, trying to find some position on the heap of sacking that might offer her even a little better comfort. "He helped us and we repaid him with betrayal. That is war for you."

"He was kind," said the former Weapons Master almost soundlessly.

"He was obeying orders. Like any officer. No more, no less."

Yathai said nothing. Hirgev saw things so very simply; she had not been there. Had not felt the human's confusion, his hurt and shame – things that nothing in her conditioning towards The Enemy had led her to expect. Bitterness and anger, yes, those she had expected and been prepared for. But not for that odd glimpse of the death of a momentary hope for ...

... _tenderness_...

Another pang struck at that moment, and Yathai flung pointless regrets from her as she took a fresh grip of the hand that closed convulsively on her own. Even the stale water was of no use, for Hirgev was incapable of swallowing it. She arched on the sacking, trying to stifle the moans; there was no saying whether there might be unfriendly ears in the ruined building above.

The shelter so long prepared had turned out to be useless. The door was there, cunningly hidden in one corner, but one of the fallen, rotted floorboards had struck it and somehow the mechanism was jammed. Maybe its secrets would not have held for long; if they had been able to enter it, it would probably only have delayed the inevitable. They had hoped to be able to use the independent communications system there to appeal for help to _Enterprise_, but the success of that rested entirely on whether the ship was still in orbit; if it was, Hirgev had hatched a plan by which victory could still be snatched from the jaws of defeat, at least for themselves. Nevertheless, if the ship was gone or Captain Archer refused to take the proffered bait, there were provisions there – food, and drink, and medicines, enough to have provided them some comfort while they waited for the end.

They had not paid much heed to the technicalities of the birthing process. That was the province of Healers, and as members of the Council both of them had many duties that took up all their time. Now Yathai wished helplessly that she had made the time to learn more. She had hardly any idea of how long the birth should be expected to take, and had been appalled by the realisation that the task of assisting with the delivery was now about to fall solely on her shoulders. Their escape from Bai had been achieved by the narrowest of margins; had it not been for the child, both of them would have stayed and died in their city, but the dictates of motherhood would not be denied. When they realised that they had no means even of finding out whether _Enterprise _was still nearby, they had hoped to somehow evade capture long enough to find refuge in some obscure farmhouse till the child was born, but the onset of labour had put an end to that idea. Escape, it seemed, was forbidden them. They could do no other than prepare to die together.

This convulsion seemed to go on longer than the others. Her fingers, already bruised and sore, ached fiercely from the grip, but she would not withdraw them.

"I think this– beloved, I think it is–" Hirgev's head was thrown back, the tendons of her neck standing out like stretched cords.

_So soon? _Yathai drew aside the begrimed wrap that covered the taut, straining belly. There was no sign, yet, and she dared not touch with unwashed hands. "Just a little longer, I think," she said, soothing, helpless. When the baby arrived she would take off her jacket; it was dirty, but the inside was clean and would hold some of her body warmth. At any rate, it would be better than one of these filthy sacks, and an infant would need protection from the cold far more than she did.

If the child was already born and healthy by the time the execution squad received their final orders, the chances were good that she would be taken away and well cared for. After all, with so many dead in the conflict, there would be a shortage of breeding stock. She would not be held accountable for the sins of her parents; she would simply be raised never knowing who they had been, or what should have been her proud heritage... At that thought Yathai put the knuckle of her right thumb into her mouth and bit down on it till the blood ran. If the knowledge was almost unendurable anguish to her, what must it be like for Hirgev?

The paroxysm passed. Another mouthful of water was accepted. The woman on the crude bed relaxed slightly, gathering her strength.

And then there were footsteps in the room above.

No weapons. They had not been able to bring so much as a pistol, knowing that scanners would be operating and marking out anyone armed among the little ragged knots of refugees fleeing from the city. Their only hope of escape lay in invisibility and anonymity, and even that would not serve them for long.

Their eyes met.

Drawing a deep breath, Yathai picked up a length of half-rotted wood that she had laid ready. It would avail her nothing, because those coming for them would be armed, but still, it was better to die holding some kind of a weapon than none at all. At least she would not be ashamed to come into the presence of her ancestors, as she would have been if she died meekly and without courage.

Hirgev could offer no help, but she reached out and touched her arm. The momentary pause between one contraction and the next allowed her to speak clearly and with blazing passion, using the traditional words of those about to die at the hands of The Enemy. "'We shall meet again in the Halls of the Ancestors', beloved."

"'I shall find no rest there till you are with me.'" The wood was so rotten it was crumbling under her fingers. It would explode into a cloud of splinters at the first blow, but then it was unthinkable that she would be allowed the chance to hit anyone.

The attackers would call out, of course, though they knew she and Hirgev were here; they would offer her their lives and a fair trial if they would surrender peacefully. At a guess they would believe she would have some kind of a weapon. Fear knifed her that they would not take the chance of coming down, but simply open the trapdoor and drop in explosives. It would be the logical thing to do, after all...

The trapdoor opened a crack, slowly.

The voice that came down was the last she had expected.

"This is Captain Archer from the Starship _Enterprise. _I'd like to talk."

* * *

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	18. Chapter 18

Yathai took a step backwards, almost dropping the piece of wood.

Her initial joyful incredulity was followed immediately by a realisation of the truth. The captain had discovered what she had done to his officer. Somehow, perhaps by using the ship's technology – so much more sophisticated than that of her own kind – he had discovered her whereabouts, and was in pursuit of revenge, both for what she had done and for what she would have done if she'd succeeded. He would either kill her himself, or take her alive and hand her over to the ichexic for judgement and execution; an excellent way to promote good relations between his Starfleet superiors and the new regime.

She had not thought him so vindictive, but then she'd hardly spoken with him. And a part of her thought, _So there will be justice._

_"A trick – a trap!" _Hirgev groaned as another contraction began.

It could be no other. She did not need telling.

The trapdoor opened further, until it went back on its hinges with a crash. And after a moment, instead of an arm dropping through with a rifle in it, ready to open volley fire blindly in the certainty of hitting something in that confined space, a booted foot dropped on to the top rung of the ladder.

Another followed it, so that the captain walked steadily down into the cellar. Right to the floor, without pausing, until he stopped at the foot of the steps and surveyed the two women opposite him.

To Yathai's surprise, he was apparently unarmed. His expression, although stern, was not overtly hostile. One of his ship's Universal Translators was evidently somewhere on his person, and operating.

"I believe you require our assistance again," he said evenly, his glance flickering towards Hirgev.

It was difficult to achieve, but somehow the Weapons Master stiffened still further. "We require nothing of you, Captain. On the contrary, your presence here may be putting us at greater risk than we are already."

He folded his arms. "Circumstances have made it possible for me to talk to you in complete safety – for a short time. And it seems to me that we may be in a position to do a trade."

Hirgev's body was bent like a bow with the effort of the contraction, but she still managed to groan out something of which only the word _Enemy _was decipherable.

"After what you did to my officer, I won't pretend to be your friend," said the human harshly. "But you can give me something I want, and that's the only reason I'm here."

Yathai blinked. They had nothing but the clothes they wore. What could he possibly want from them except their lives?

Hard on the heels of that question came the realisation of what else, and worse, he might want from them first. For him, and perhaps even for his crew as well.

Perhaps Hirgev had been right, after all.

He stepped forward, and now it was plain he was controlling his anger on a curb-chain so tight that if he had been a _kezahu _it would have broken his jaw. "I have a good man and a fine officer on my ship, who – if he survives – stands to have his career wrecked because of whatever you did to him. I don't expect an apology, because that would be an act of decency. What I _want _is you to let go whatever hold you have on him, and to give me a full explanation. Something I can say to Lieutenant Reed and to Starfleet that will put the records straight. The _official _records, at any rate," he amended, and the scorn in his face and voice was cutting. "I don't think anything could put right what you did to him on a personal level. But then I don't suppose you give a damn about that, do you."

"We were at war," said Yathai, standing straight and facing him. "He would have done whatever needed to be done to safeguard the crew of your ship. That was what I did, and I am not ashamed of it." Though to her mortification, the hot blood chasing into her skin betrayed that she could not dismiss his contempt as easily as she should have been able to.

"If you're not, you should be." He glanced at Hirgev. "You need help and she needs a doctor. I haven't got time to argue. There's a patrol about two kilometers away, heading this way. If you'll play ball, I can get you out of here. Otherwise you're on your own."

She had thought him soft. He was not. With the safety of his officer at stake, he was immovable. And Hirgev was gasping – short, hard, driven gasps that told even the most inexperienced ears that the child was about to make an appearance.

Maybe he was telling the truth; maybe he really did want nothing more from them than the restoration he demanded. But whether he was lying or not, he represented the only chance for survival now that they had.

"I agree to your terms."

The captain stepped closer to her. His eyes were as hard as his voice. "You're not at war now. You've lost. I expect you to honor your word. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly." It was only despair that kept her head high.

He searched her face for a long moment, and then nodded and stepped back. He took a communicator from one pocket of his uniform and flipped it open. "Three to beam up."

Yathai wondered what he meant, and how they were to get Hirgev up the ladder to the shuttlepod that must be waiting. Seconds later, however, her flesh began to tingle. She hardly had time to cry out in panic before the world dissolved around her, and she found herself and the two others somehow suddenly aboard the _Enterprise._

* * *

It seemed that there had been some expectation that medical treatment might be needed, for there was a medical team standing ready, and almost before Yathai understood what was happening, the Denobulan doctor was kneeling beside Hirgev and administering pain relief. "Sickbay for you, young lady," he said, his voice at once kindly and impersonally professional, and his assistants lifted the ex-ichexin with gentle, competent hands and placed her on a gurney, which they wheeled away down the corridor at speed, the doctor following so briskly that his coat billowed out behind him.

Yathai would have followed too, as soon as she'd recovered from her initial paralysis, but before she could move, a tall, slender woman with dark wavy hair levelled a pistol at her, the same kind that Lieutenant Reed had worn. The crimson piping on her uniform suggested that she was a member of his team, and the single rank pip that she was his junior officer – a construction that the utterly steady hand on the pistol supported. The frankly hostile expression on her face was therefore easily understood.

"Easy, Ensign," said the captain, stepping down from the platform. "Our _guest _has promised to co-operate."

The glare from the other woman said that she had better, if she knew what was wise. But the pistol was reluctantly lowered, and after a moment it slid onto the clip at her right hip. "We have guest quarters ready, _Capitán. _Not the Brig, because..."

"Definitely not." Captain Archer's gaze turned to his 'guest', still stony. "Now, you'll tell me the procedure for keeping your side of the bargain."

Once again Yathai was unable to maintain her composure as well as she would have wished. Desperately she tried to recall the details of the plan that Hirgev had outlined during their desperate flight from the city. "I must touch him–"

_"No!" _The blond officer behind the console that presumably operated this 'transporting device' had been silent and watchful until now, but he spoke with some violence, though he looked at the captain as he did so. He had been one of the high-ranking officers at the reception, though she did not remember his name. "Cap'n, she's had one try already! You don't know what else she wants to do to him – or make him do!"

She kept her head up. "I have given my word."

The weapons officer said nothing, obviously refraining from comment with considerable difficulty, but her glare was now ferocious.

The captain measured her yet again. "It seems we have no choice but to trust you." He stepped to a comm panel on the wall. "Archer to the Bridge."

"T'Pol here."

"Are we getting any sign they spotted the transporter beams?"

"No, Captain. The expected interruption appears to have been carried out successfully. Normal surveillance patterns were resumed just a few moments after you returned to the ship."

"Looks like we got away with it so far," he said grimly. "Tell Hoshi to keep monitoring their transmissions just in case. I'll be busy down here yet awhile, but call me if there's any sign of trouble."

"Acknowledged. T'Pol out."

He cut the connection and turned back to Yathai.

"I'm going to take your word that it's necessary for you to touch Lieutenant Reed in order to 'undo' what you can of what you did to him. But the last thing I'm going to do is just walk you in there unannounced. He has a right to be prepared, at least." He met the blond officer's angry stare. "Commander, I'd like you to come with me. Ensign Gomez, escort our guest to her quarters and mount a double guard outside her door at all times."

The weapons officer nodded, and gestured that Yathai should precede her. The captain walked in the opposite direction, with his subordinate close behind. It did not take prescience to predict that the wisdom of this course of action would be contested as soon as they were out of earshot; at a guess, the younger man had a bond of some kind with Lieutenant Reed. Perhaps they were lovers. Yathai imagined how she would feel if someone had done to Hirgev what she had done to the lieutenant. She would simply kill them, without a second thought.

Maybe the commander would kill her, afterwards. If Hirgev died, she would not care.

On that thought, the Merix turned towards Ensign Gomez. "My _suewa ..._ I do not know your word ... and the child? Will they tell me how they go on?"

"I will ask the doctor for news presently," the other woman said rather coolly. "Doubtless he is very busy right now."

Hoping against hope that the long hours before proper medical help became available had not endangered mother or child, and that the Denobulan knew what he was doing when it came to assisting at a childbirth, Yathai nodded submissively. And when the ensign finally showed her into a small, neat cabin and the door closed behind her, she raised no protest. She was suddenly so tired that it was all she could do to walk as far as the bunk, where she lay down and stretched out, staring at the ceiling. Even the thought of all the deaths on the planet far below, and the suffering still to come of the survivors, was unreal, something that existed behind a wall of numb acceptance, to be dealt with at some other time.

After all the struggle and suffering, now all that was left for her was the present. And the waiting.

And the next stage of the plan.

* * *

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	19. Chapter 19

Crewman Liz Cutler opened the door of the brig a little timidly.

She had two of the Armory staff present, their faces blank with discomfort as they kept a close watch on their superior officer. She was quite sure that whatever their personal feelings, they wouldn't let any harm come to her, but they must be as bewildered as she was by a turn of events that would leave the captain no choice but to incarcerate his own Head of Security.

Phlox was taken up with delivering the baby. The medical team had only just made it into Sickbay before the delivery started in earnest, and although he said the infant appeared to be healthy, his expertise would be required. He'd then mentioned that it was time for Lieutenant Reed to be given another dose of sedative, and asked somewhat diffidently if she would mind deputizing for him.

It wasn't something she was particularly eager to do. She had never been particularly comfortable around the lieutenant, finding him unapproachable and intimidating at the best of times. And now, definitely far from the best of times, there was no saying how he would react. Rumor around the corridors had it that he'd gone berserk and Trip Tucker had been forced to shoot him – one of the more colorful versions said, in order to stop him from attacking the captain.

Well. As rigid and self-contained as the Englishman had always seemed, the idea of him going berserk was as incredible as it was scary. And the idea of him actually trying to attack Captain Archer was literally unimaginable.

But, there he was … in the Brig. Under guard. And not protesting. Though Phlox would never, under any circumstances, ask her or anyone else to treat someone who was … well … berserk.

"Lieutenant?" she said nervously. Of all the people on board _Enterprise_, the very worst person of all to take by surprise would be Malcolm Reed.

There was no reply. He was lying down on the bunk, loosely curled up on his left hand side, his back towards the wall. The tray with his evening meal on it was on the floor, and by the look of it he had eaten nothing.

Liz licked lips that were suddenly a little dry. "Er, sir, I'm sorry… I have to give you your next shot. Are you feeling all right?"

Still no reply. Almost on tiptoe, she moved forward to check on him. Perhaps he was asleep.

As she drew level with him, however, his eyes flicked open. He didn't move, but she realized that his whole body was rigid; one hand was lying on the blanket almost opposite his face, and it was clenched into a fist, knuckles bloodless. He didn't speak either, but he watched her as though she were an enemy.

Absurdly, she showed him the hypospray – as though he'd never seen such a thing before! "Doctor Phlox said it would help you, sir," she said, trying to sound soothing.

As she leaned over him, aiming for his neck, he suddenly recoiled. He flung himself violently back against the wall, where he lay immobile, blazing eyes daring her to try to touch him.

She _didn't_ dare. At this moment she'd a thousand times rather have had the aloof, self-controlled officer who was a familiar sight around the ship than this frightening stranger whose glare held her off like a leveled blade.

"Sir, I … I have to give you this," she told him helplessly. In fairness to Phlox, she couldn't believe that he would have sent her to do this if he'd had the slightest idea that the lieutenant would react in this way. But the thought of going back to Sickbay and confessing to being unable to administer a simple sedative to a member of the ship's crew was so galling that she loathed the thought of simply giving up and retreating.

"Take it easy, crewman." The captain's voice through the Brig intercom was the most welcome thing she'd ever heard in her life. "Just step back from him quietly."

The door hissed open, and thankfully he and Trip were in the small room with her. Lieutenant Reed did not seem to notice their arrival. His gaze remained fixed on her, and not a muscle of his body relaxed.

"Steady, Lieutenant." Captain Archer's strong frame came between them and Liz retreated gratefully.

She almost cannoned into Commander Tucker, who steadied her.

"Whoa, there. Are you okay? He didn't hurt you?" He peered into her face with concern, shepherding her out into the corridor.

Stupid, to feel this wobbly over so little; but nevertheless she leaned against the wall of the corridor outside and was almost as grateful for his supportive presence.

"No, he didn't even touch me. I'll be fine." She mustered up a smile. "He's always made me kind of … nervous, I guess. And now…"

"What were you doin' in there to start with?" he asked.

Liz showed him the hypospray. "Doctor Phlox is busy with the birth. He said Lieutenant Reed would need this." The laugh was somewhat shaky. "I think he must have left it a little late."

"Phlox would never have asked you if he'd known." Trip frowned. "I guess I should call Sickbay, put him in the picture."

"No, sir, please don't. I'll drop by and tell him when he's finished." The Denobulan would have enough on his hands without having to answer a call on the comm.

"Well, if you're sure… Give me that, an' I'll make sure Malcolm gets it."

"Sonambutril. Two units," she advised him as she handed it over.

He looked from the hypospray to her in some wonder. "So how much of this stuff has he had, or am I not supposed to ask?"

"Put it this way, sir, if any of us'd had what he's had, we'd be out for a week."

She was just turning to leave when they both heard the shouting inside the Brig. The commander swore, undoubtedly forgetting where he was, and slammed his hand down on the entry button.

The scene within was one of chaos. The two crewmen from Security were inside the cell, helping the captain try to subdue Lieutenant Reed. The Englishman's voice rose in a crazed yell. "Her! _Her, her, HER!"_

Tucker glanced grimly at the hypospray. "If I can't get this into him, we'll try to give you a chance."

She watched in horror as he launched himself through the door and joined the heaving mass of humanity inside the cell.

The lieutenant was as cunning as a fox and as slippery as an eel, and in his frenzy seemed to have acquired almost superhuman strength. His opponents hampered each other's efforts and were hindered by their wish not to hurt him, a wish he evidently didn't share; luckily in the extremely confined area he had little space to launch strikes of any real power, but more than one of the other men would undoubtedly sport impressive bruises the next day. After a couple of moments, however, she saw Trip's hand with the hypospray in it thrust into the ruckus.

Abruptly the heaving eased and came to a halt. The tangle of bodies resolved itself into captain, commander and crewmen, all gasping for breath, and the drooping form of Lieutenant Reed among them, now being lowered gently towards the deck plating.

"Her," she heard him moan as the Sonambutril finally overwhelmed him. "Her…" And then finally, blessedly, he was out.

"Is anyone hurt?" she asked, seeing that they all looked distinctly the worse for wear after their exertions.

Apparently nobody was, apart from the bruises. Shakily she retrieved the now empty hypospray and headed for Sickbay.

* * *

The wailing of a newborn greeted her as she entered Phlox's domain. The doctor was just handing the infant to the mother, and as soon as the two were safely reunited he drew the privacy curtain around the bed and came over to his assistant.

"All done!" he said cheerfully. "Quite straightforward, in the end. I take it you had no trouble?"

"Not exactly, Doc." She grimaced. "As a matter of fact, Commander Tucker ended up doing it. Lieutenant Reed was … well, he went kind of crazy. I think he attacked the captain."

The smile vanished from Phlox's face as though it had been wiped from it with a cloth. "Was the captain badly hurt?" he demanded.

"No, I don't think so. The guards got involved, luckily, and Commander Tucker managed to get the sedation done."

"But what happened?"

"I don't know. I went into the Brig to give him the injection, and … he looked, well, furious. Like he thought I was going to hurt him." She went on to explain what had happened, and the Denobulan looked more and more concerned.

"I'd better go down and take a look for myself. Would you mind keeping an eye on our visitor for just a few moments?"

"Not at all." She watched the doctor gather a few instruments and hurry from the room, and paused irresolute for a few seconds before moving to the privacy curtain. "Excuse me," she said, raising her voice slightly so that the UT on the counter would pick it up. "Do you mind me coming in?"

"Please do."

Needing no further invitation, she pushed the curtain aside. Mother and baby made a very charming picture, though doubtless it would be better when the patient would have had time to get herself cleaned up and made more presentable. At a guess she'd been in a bad state when rescued from the planet; her dark hair was tangled, and her face and shoulders were streaked with dust, though her hands and arms had been carefully cleaned to let her hold the infant without any risk of contamination with whatever germs might be present. The baby, currently busy getting a first feed, had a fuzz of black hair, and was suckling with an expression of acute determination. The six tiny barbels quested gently across the skin of the breast, touching with minute dabbing movements.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" asked Liz quietly.

"A girl, of course." The reply fell just short of a snap.

Allowances, of course, had to be made for exhaustion, and Liz was of a peaceable disposition. "She's beautiful," she said sincerely. "Is she your first?"

"First and last."

"My sister had her first baby last week. It feels kind of funny, being an auntie. Makes me feel a bit old." She used the wall controls to lower the lights a little in the area, feeling that it made the atmosphere a bit more homelike. "Have you thought of a name for her yet?"

"Not yet. We will discuss it later." She glanced up. "May I ask a favor of you?"

"Sure."

"I am thirsty. Please could you get me something to drink?"

"No problem at all. You'll need to keep your fluid intake up, it'll help with your milk. Would plain water be okay, or would you prefer juice?"

"Water, please. Thank you."

The woman was formal, but polite enough, Liz reflected as she stepped away to the tap in Sickbay's preparation area.

At that moment the comm chime sounded. "Gomez to Sickbay."

"Sickbay, Crewman Cutler here." She answered the summons. "Dr. Phlox has just been called away, can I help you?"

"Crewman." Em's tone was formal; she was evidently on duty. "I have been asked to request an update on Ichexin Hirgev's progress."

"The delivery was straightforward. Both she and the baby are fine, according to what Dr. Phlox told me."

"Good. I will pass on the message. Gomez out."

Liz brought a glass from the cupboard and held it under the tap. The photocell-activated tap turned on, filling it with clean water, at which she stared unseeingly. Somewhere at the back of her mind, a small, seemingly senseless warning bell had begun to sound. It was all mixed up with the memory of Lieutenant Reed's choked cries: _'Her…her…her…'_

* * *

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	20. Chapter 20

For a few moments, after handing over the water, Liz stood irresolute. Then she walked out of Sickbay and spoke to the security guard on duty outside, who moved a few steps up the corridor, pulled out a communicator and held a short, extremely quiet conversation through it.

"The other prisoner is still in her quarters," he said softly. "Ensign Gomez is on guard. She hasn't had any instructions from the captain yet."

Liz glanced around. The corridor was quiet, innocuous. Was she panicking for nothing?

"Tell her … tell her I think there's something going on. I think Lieutenant Reed was trying to warn us. Ask her to alert the captain. But quietly."

He nodded and began speaking into the communicator again. She walked rapidly back to Sickbay.

Ichexin Hirgev had drunk half of the water. The glass was on the bedside table. Other than that, she had not moved, but was no longer looking down at the infant in her arms. Her disconcerting bright green gaze was fixed unseeingly on the far wall, while the barbels along her cheekbones were motionless, the pad at the tip of each suddenly bearing an eerie resemblance to a tiny, listening ear.

"Are you feeling okay? Can I get you anything more?" asked Liz, halting beside the bed.

There was no reply. The baby gurgled, a small sound that would ordinarily have drawn a new mother's attention at once, but it didn't elicit so much as a downward glance.

Cutler tried again. "Ma'am?"

Silence.

Quietly she picked up a scanner. "We just need to keep an eye on how your body settles down after the delivery," she explained, as though she'd noticed nothing at all amiss. "I'll get this done first and then we'll have a look at your little girl later. Maybe after you've had something to eat. It's just a precaution."

As an exobiologist she was already quite familiar with the workings of a scanner, although naturally the one Phlox used was somewhat different from the one she used in her laboratory work. She thumbed swiftly through the settings.

To preserve the fiction, she started the scan at hip level. Its setting made small sense of the information it obtained there, but she said nothing, bringing it quickly and steadily up the midline of the body. A quick responsive flutter from where the baby was nestling did not give her pause; she moved on, up the rest of the sternum, up the neck…

She hadn't had much experience with neurological readings. But in the mere instant she had before the flicker of returning awareness in the fixed jade eyes warned her, she saw something that brought her thumb jabbing onto the 'hold screen' button.

"Everything checks out fine," she said cheerfully as the gaze shortened to take her in and the barbels once again began their questing movements. "Your blood pressure's coming back to normal. The pain relief makes it drop a little, so we have to keep an eye on you every few minutes."

"Thank you," responded the other woman mechanically, looking down at the baby. "We all have duties we must perform. Sometimes it is easy to forget that."

"Oh, I'm with you there! But it's wonderful, being part of the crew of a starship like _Enterprise. _For a scientist like me, it's a dream come true." Continuing to prattle about the specimens she'd been able to study and the papers she'd sent back to Earth, Liz laid the scanner on the counter beside the cage that contained one of the doctor's more retiring creatures, something that she'd fed more than once but never yet caught a glimpse of. Inside, she was wondering desperately what the hell was keeping Phlox, and how she could possibly contrive to alert him and the captain to what she'd seen. She didn't know what it meant, but she was absolutely certain it meant _something._

The door hissed open perhaps ten minutes later, but it wasn't Phlox; it was Hoshi, now off duty and changed into leisure wear. She came over to a frankly stunned Liz and stood close beside her, though not before stealing a glance at the occupied bio-bed. "I heard about the baby!" she said in a low voice, beaming. "It seems so long since I've seen one, I just couldn't wait to have a look. Think the mom'll let me have a cuddle? If she knows I'm having one myself?"

With an effort, Liz shut her mouth. She'd seen her friend the evening before, and the development of a small but distinct mound under the leisure pants was a startlingly recent one. To judge by the silence of the rumor mill on the topic, nobody to date who had seen her in the standard Starfleet coverall had noticed any change whatsoever in her usually svelte outline either.

"Trip wants me to get some practice in," Hoshi added blithely, her tone utterly at variance with the urgent message in her eyes. "He just loves this whole idea of me being pregnant. Especially when the baby turns around like this so you can really see it."

"That's men for you. They get all the fun and we get all the fat and the belly-ache." Cutler quoted her sister almost at random as the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. "Well, we can but ask. It'll do you good to get some practice."

She led the way over to the bio-bed. "Ma'am, this is our comm officer, Ensign Hoshi Sato. As you can see, she's expecting a little one herself. We don't get many births on board ship, so she's a bit excited by yours. Would you mind her having a look?"

"Oh, isn't she the most gorgeous little thing?" cooed Hoshi. "Oh, if ours is half that pretty Trip'll be just crazy about her!"

"I am sure your daughter will be beautiful." The Merix looked up at her with something between indulgence and contempt, plainly not believing any infant could be even a quarter as beautiful as hers. "Would you like to hold mine for a moment?"

"Oh, may I?" If the situation had been any less serious, Liz would have laughed aloud at the expression of almost fatuous delight on her friend's face. "Thank you so much! I'll be really careful with her! Liz, can you help me so I don't have an accident?"

"I think that would be a really good idea." This was going to be difficult to make convincing, because of the two of them it was Hoshi, with her crop of nieces and nephews, who had by far the most experience in handling babies. Nevertheless between the two of them they contrived to produce a fair imitation of an enthusiastic amateur being coached by an experienced nurse. The now fully-fed and snugly-wrapped baby was handed over without mishap, and lay quietly in Hoshi's arms, surveying her somnolently from under half-closed lids while the minute barbels on her plump cheeks alternately curled up like fern-fronds or pricked delicately at the air as though testing the unfamiliar perfume and finding it intriguing.

"Oh, this is so exciting!" Hoshi burbled. "What should I do now?"

"Just go for a little walk around Sickbay. Most babies like being carried around, it's sort of like being rocked. Just be really careful."

"Do you think I should sing? Just really quietly?"

"No, I don't think she needs you to sing. If you're really quiet she might go to sleep. Newborns sleep a lot."

"I'll be really, really quiet. Isn't she an absolute sweetheart?" Hoshi started to walk, and at that moment the double doors opened and Doctor Phlox entered, immediately followed by the captain, who was carrying the unconscious form of Lieutenant Reed.

With a grunt of relief – the Englishman might be slight, but what there was of him was solid muscle – Captain Archer laid Malcolm down on one of the vacant bio-beds. Straightening up, he frowned across at Hoshi. "I've told Trip you're not to make yourself a nuisance in here. If you can't keep out of the way you'll have to leave."

"Oh no, sir, I'll be really quiet!" cried Hoshi. "If I sit here in this corner for a while will that be all right?" She backed a couple of meters to where a couple of empty crates that had contained medical supplies were stacked ready for transfer to one of the cargo bays, and sat on top of them, cuddling the baby and apparently taking no further interest in proceedings.

"I did the scan you mentioned, Doctor," said Liz, picking up the scanner and handing it to the Denobulan. "If you'll just check it and verify my findings, I think you'll find everything in order."

"Most thoughtful of you, Crewman." Phlox glanced at the saved screen before he laid it aside. "Yes, indeed. Quite what I expected." He activated the full scanner over the bio-bed, and looked up at it. "Well, there doesn't seem to have been any change. I don't say I have no concerns over this 'procedure', but I'm afraid I can't offer any alternative. I put together a dose of the medicine I mentioned earlier, but after I checked his details on the database I'm afraid it's more likely to kill him outright than anything else." He took a hypospray from his pocket and put it carefully on the table. "Even a small amount of this could be toxic to someone with his allergies."

The captain scowled. "Just as well you checked it first. So the bottom line is, we have no option. We have to go through with this." He stepped to the comm unit on the wall, and in the staccato sentences of a worried and angry man, ordered Ensign Gomez to bring the prisoner to Sickbay.

Liz kept quietly in the background, observing. Ichexin Hirgev had been watching Hoshi and the baby, but suddenly she was staring at the wall again.

* * *

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	21. Chapter 21

Hirgev heard the doors open. Two people came in, but she saw only Yathai, her beautiful _suewa, _her 'other-self'. The one being for whom she cared more than for the baby, the one person who had been constant.

Without thought she turned over in the bed, half-extending her hands towards the other woman and gesturing her overwhelming feelings in the hope that Yathai would see them and respond.

How many memories they had made together, how much they had shared. How different the future could have been, but for the cunning of that _hiu'eri _down on the planet and all the rest of his kind. Now what remained for them? At best, as things stood, they could hope only to survive – just two among the fleeing, hunted remnants of the ruling class, whose only value now lay in any mature eggs that could be harvested from their dead bodies.

They had both known how desperate their plight had become, on that last day. Nothing else could have driven her to ask what she had of Yathai. She had shuddered at the bare thought of it: to send her other-self into the arms of one of The Enemy, to ask her to expose herself to whatever beastly cruelties were necessary to satisfy his desires! But there had been an odd rapport between the two of them, on the previous day – the last day, though none of them could have guessed it then, of their happiness; afterwards, Yathai had spoken with wonder of how easy he had been to talk with, how knowledgeable and courteous. Observing them closely, in between talking on her own account with the other members of the diplomatic delegation from the ship, Hirgev had been surprised herself that the Humans' somewhat reserved Weapons Master had been so superficially polite; she had expected an arrogant boor, determined to establish the inferiority of their hosts' technological achievements from the start. Nevertheless, she had neither been deceived by his assumed gentleness nor blind to the possibilities his obvious attraction to Yathai offered.

At first it had been a vague hope that the latter might incline him towards sharing Starfleet technology more readily and freely than he might otherwise have done, but a very little questioning of Yathai afterwards had shown her that he was aware of where his duty laid boundaries, and determined to observe these – doubtless deeming the Merixa quite unworthy of such benefits. When the news of the imminent assault broke out, however, a far more deadly scheme had occurred to her almost at once. Once on board his ship, the lieutenant had all that technology at his fingertips.

"Weapons Master." Captain Archer's harsh voice interrupted Hirgev's reflections so that she abruptly stopped gesturing and glared at him. "My ship's doctor will be monitoring you every moment. And if he sees the slightest suggestion that you intend any repetition of your previous behaviour toward my lieutenant, he will put a stop to whatever you're doing – immediately."

Ah – she was so sad! Even her beautiful slender _obisteh _were drooping, wilting down across the pale cheeks. Hirgev had not known she would look like this, or she might even have been less forceful in the conversation they'd had only a few minutes ago. And yet, necessity is the cruellest of all masters. They could not pass up their last opportunity for the sake of some unexpected weakness.

The Humans, it seemed, did not know that their prisoner-guests shared a bond, one which was the reality of the warped echo by which Yathai had taken control of Lieutenant Reed. Between lovers, this was a channel for comfort and affection – and occasionally, when the need was there, for a stern reminder of the realities of their situation.

Hirgev had been startled by the initial resistance she had encountered. Anger had flooded through her, making her thoughts turbulent and hurtful. Too much so, for Yathai had had no defence against them. The sudden collapse had told her too late how damaged her other-self was, so that her kindness had also come too late, when the mischief was done and past undoing. There had been almost no response to the cajoling and encouragement as Yathai was escorted towards Sickbay, and that in itself was unheard-of.

Still – Yathai knew her duty; the other had only been a moment's foolishness, a natural consequence of the stresses of the past two days. Hirgev now watched with pride as her other-self walked towards the unconscious lieutenant. Drugs would not protect his mind with the two of them linked against him; all his knowledge would be open to them, so that even as Yathai pretended to restore him they could plunder all of that technological expertise he possessed. With that in their possession, their position back on Javna would be very different. There would be little difficulty in convincing the new regime that their knowledge was far more valuable than their eggs, and entering into negotiations accordingly. The fact that ripping the information from the Human by force would inflict on him neurological trauma so great that once they relinquished control of him he would be left as a drooling idiot for the rest of his life was only a minor complication; after all, he was one of The Enemy.

Watched closely by the captain and the doctor, and by the female weapons officer who had brought her here and remained vigilant beside the door, Yathai touched her fingers to Reed's forehead. Hirgev restrained another surge of irritation at the sorrowful droop of her other-self's shoulders. She had not asked how it had been, during that ghastly experience when Yathai had been required to endure the Human's lust. In truth, she had not wanted to know, and the other woman had seemed understandably anxious only to forget it. Now was her chance to avenge herself for everything he had done to her; why then was she hesitating?

_He was gentle, _Yathai said suddenly through the bond.

_He is one of The Enemy, _Hirgev reminded her yet again, careful now to keep the tone of her thoughts calm and persuasive rather than hectoring. _This must be done, beloved, for both our sakes. And for the child's. _

_It was not how you said it would be. He was ... even when he realised, he did not want to hurt me._

_In war, there are always casualties. He understands that._

_We are not at war with them. We offered them friendship._

_Yathai, this is our only chance! Does our love mean nothing to you?_

_Does my honour mean nothing to _you?

The sudden retort was so shocking that Hirgev actually hesitated. She looked around a little blindly for the child, but the foolish ensign was occupied with wrapping the infant warmly in a blanket and cooing over it, and was paying no attention whatsoever to what went forward.

_He would understand, _she said, just too late to be convincing.

_No. He would not._

Yathai bent closer. Beyond her, the captain took up a carefully neutral stance, but his face was closed and wary. The doctor seemed more interested in the settings for the scanner above Lieutenant Reed's head, which he was adjusting. The woman from the Armoury team was still beside the door, motionless and watchful. The only other person in the room was the diminutive nurse, who was standing opposite the foot of Hirgev's bed, glancing casually from time to time at the monitor above the head of it in between watching what her superior was doing.

There was a pause. Hirgev watched her other-self's fingers trace the outline of Reed's left cheekbone, so bare and ugly without the _obisteh_ to lend it character. Her own had now coiled up tightly against her flawless skin, faithful indicators of her strange reluctance.

_They will grow suspicious, beloved,_ she said gently, trying not to betray the sudden cruel stab of the jealousy she felt as well as the impatience. _If I could do this for you, I would. I am sorry that it is so difficult for you._

_You were willing enough that I should suffer the thing that you feared, _said Yathai bitterly. _I did not hear you offering to share it with me, even only in my mind, giving me comfort. You did not care that I was alone and afraid. You did not care that I gave up my honour._

_But this is nonsense! _Hirgev was aghast. _It is war, and in war such things happen, as I told you! How can you doubt that I love you?_

_I am doubting many things. You said that he would be rough and cruel, and care nothing, and you were wrong. I even begin to wonder if all of The Enemy of our own kind are alike. I wonder if we have created the thing we hate, and feed it with our own hatred. I wonder if it is indeed as he said – that we are achieving nothing but destroying ourselves through our own folly._

Yathai was staring down at him now. Their faces were so close that she must be able to feel his slow, even breaths, but still her gradually uncoiling _obisteh_ hovered and danced in an agony of reluctance and indecision.

He was sedated. That had been part of the plan, that if they could somehow reach _Enterprise _and opportunity offered, Yathai should use her hold on him to provoke him into a reaction that would lead his own kind to drug him into helplessness. It could not, therefore, be fear that held her immobile. She had only to reach out and take his mind, and with it, their future. They could simply say afterwards that something had gone wrong, that somehow the lieutenant's brain had been damaged by the procedure that for a Merixan brain was completely harmless.

Humans were soft, weak. Even if they suspected the truth, what could they prove? They would not take revenge. Hard words would break no heads.

So why in the names of the Four Hells was Yathai hesitating?

Hirgev decided to try a different tack. _Your compassion is commendable_, she said soothingly. _We will be merciful. The instrument on the table beside you will kill him. When we are done, use it. No-one will be close enough to stop you. _They could say that Yathai had felt so terrified by the lieutenant's returning consciousness that she'd thought he would attack her when he woke up, and had used it instinctively in self-defence. After all, how was she to know that what it contained would kill him? She had not been present when the doctor said so.

_Yes. _Yathai was still staring. As if even beneath the weight of the sedation he was aware of her, his eyelashes fluttered; his eyes half-opened for a moment, and his lips moved slightly. But he was too weak to resist. He sank back safely into oblivion. _Yes, _she whispered again. _He would rather die than be a traitor._

Realising instantly what Yathai meant to do, Hirgev was swept by a blinding rage. As the other woman's hand darted to the hypospray, she flung all of her power of command into the bond. It should have been directed at the Human, helping to shatter him, but instead it would be directed at her beloved, and could hardly be less devastating in effect.

As focussed as she was, she hardly heard the sharp cry of warning from the nurse; but she heard the scream from Ensign Sato, who leaped to her feet and flung the bundle in her arms to the deck plating with a violence that was surely enough to kill.

_The child – the child! _Molten horror froze her for the instant it took Yathai to seize the hypospray and press it to Lieutenant Reed's neck. The small hiss of it discharging was loud in the sliver of silence before Sickbay exploded into shouting and movement, in the midst of which the lieutenant's arms flashed up and seized Yathai, grabbing her to him even as he rolled violently off the bio-bed, doubtless with the intention of murdering her.

Screeching with fury and terror, Hirgev lunged out of the bed. She had hardly got to her feet before she saw the ensign lift a booted foot and with absolute precision stamp down on the helpless bundle on the deck in front of her.

Absolute disbelief paralysed her. That any female ..._any! ... _would–

It was the last conscious thought she had before a phase pistol shot took her squarely in the back.

* * *

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	22. Chapter 22

Commander Tucker's entrance was so impetuous it almost knocked Em off her feet.

Fortunately, she'd got the shot off before being trampled on by an excitable Chief Engineer, so she contented herself with a few muttered curses in Catalan as she scrambled back to her feet.

"Did it work?" shouted Trip frantically. "Is he okay?"

Nobody answered. Sickbay was suddenly deathly quiet.

_"Patrón! ¿Se encuentra bien?" _She and Trip both lunged across the bio-bed, almost banging heads with Captain Archer and Phlox, bending at the far side of it.

Malcolm and the other Merixan woman were lying beside it, tangled up together. Archer's hands were under the Englishman's armpits, Phlox's around the Merix's waist, braced to tear them apart; but the barbels on Yathai's cheekbones were fastened firmly to Malcolm's face, and the two of them were staring fixedly into each other's eyes.

In a cold fury, Em pressed the muzzle of her phase pistol to the alien's head. Her index finger was already resting on the trigger, waiting for the word of command to be given.

_"Malcolm!" _said the captain desperately. "Phlox, get ready..."

"No." The tactical officer's clenched jaws barely moved, but the word emerged clearly. "Leave us, Captain... please."

The doctor brought down the hand-held scanner and moved it carefully across the pair. "I suggest you do as he asks, Captain. Their brain patterns are so closely synchronized now that I'm afraid separating them by force could do one or both of them very serious harm."

Slowly Archer's hands relaxed and withdrew. The captain didn't move, however, but waited, his gaze going from the scanner to his officer and back again.

Much to Em's indignation, he gestured her to remove the phase pistol. She complied, but returned it to the clip at her hip with considerable reluctance. How did any of them know that the lieutenant was speaking of his own volition?

"Son of a..." murmured Trip. "How long d'you think we should leave 'em?"

"As long as necessary, Commander." Phlox got to his feet. "In the meantime, I have another patient to attend to – assuming, of course, your phase pistol _was_ set on stun, Ensign."

_"¡Desde luego! _Though, _¡demonios! _I was tempted!" With a last raking stare at the Merixan female still entwined with her _Patrón_, Em turned away to assess the situation elsewhere, as he would have wished her to do.

The other Merix was crumpled beside the bio-bed on which she had been lying. Gomez glanced at her indifferently, but looked in concern at Liz Cutler, who was leaning against the wall with a grin struggling onto her green face. Hoshi was standing beside her, hands on hips, wearing an expression of outrage.

"You actually thought I'd..." The comms officer swooped down and picked up the blanket on the floor, out of which fell the rolled-up shape of the undershirt that had constituted her 'pregnancy'. "Elizabeth Jane Cutler, I will never _speak _to you again!"

"I was too busy watching _her_," protested Liz feebly, gesturing towards Hirgev. "I never saw you make the switch..."

Hoshi smirked. "I took the chance when she turned over to watch when the captain arrived. The baby's down behind the top crate, as snug as a bug in a rug."

"Hey. Let's keep bugs out of this, okay?" Trip grimaced as he pressed the comm button on the Sickbay wall. "Tucker to Bridge."

_"Bridge." _T'Pol answered the hail herself, without waiting for whoever was manning the comm station.

"Ah, things seem to be mostly under control down here. We'll keep you posted."

_"Understood." _From her slightly terse reply, it was clear that the Vulcan had Opinions on Commander Tucker's idea of a clear and concise report, but was content to wait for clarification, at least for the time being. _"Bridge out."_

"No harm done. She'll wake up in an hour or so, probably with a headache." Phlox straightened from examining Hirgev. "I'd suggest that we put her somewhere she won't be tempted to any more mischief; I'm sure we can find a couple of willing volunteers to help me look after the baby in the meantime. And just to make sure, I think until we're all ready to sit down and talk in a civilized manner, the mother may benefit from a dose of something to keep her out of mischief."

"Just don't give her whatever you gave Malcolm." The captain looked up with a faint, grim smile.

"I certainly won't." The doctor shook his head. "Normally I wouldn't have dreamed of giving a patient such a strong stimulant, but it was the only way to counter what he'd already had. And of course, there was always the chance they wouldn't try to inject him with it."

"Try to kill him with it, you mean," said Archer darkly, looking down again. "No thanks to them he's not dead already."

"Captain." Phlox looked at him gently. "You've already said that your first instinct was that Yathai's word could be trusted. In the circumstances, we can only say that we've eliminated one clear threat. Whatever is happening here now _appears _to be benign. I'm afraid I can't say any more than that. We'll just have to wait and see."

Em muttered a word she was fairly sure the captain didn't know the translation of. She would not regard the situation as satisfactory until or unless Malcolm Reed regained consciousness and was once again in his rightful place as the ship's Tactical Officer. She glared at the unconscious Merix. She would take the greatest possible pleasure in depositing _that _one in the Brig.

She only wished it had a key, so she could shoot it out of an airlock and indulge in a little target practice.

* * *

By the time the end of her duty period came – she and Bernhard had arranged to work one-and-a-half shifts each, to cover the three, in view of the fact that the ship was still orbiting a planet that could _conceivably_ pose a threat – there had still been no news from Sickbay. The captain and the other officers had gone to wash, change and eat, since the Alpha shift was over; Em occupied the seat at the Tactical Station, monitoring events on the planet, but every hour she went to scowl at the occupant of the Brig and stare through the double doors of the doctor's lair to make sure that everything within was still quiet.

On one of these visits she noticed that the lights had been lowered. She was just about to use the nearest comm station to check that all was well when the doctor himself appeared, looking rather more relaxed than he had done the last time she had seen him.

"Is Lieutenant Reed OK, Doctor?" she asked anxiously.

"I believe so, Ensign. The 'procedure' ended some minutes ago, and the scans suggest it was entirely successful. But right now I think the most important thing for both of them is to have time to rest, so I thought I might visit the Mess Hall and see if they have anything left."

Em frowned. "You think it is safe for them to be left alone?"

"Quite safe. She is exhibiting no hostility towards Mister Reed, I assure you."

"Hostility? Doctor, she tried to _kill _him!" she said angrily.

"Indeed she did. And, if I understand the situation correctly, for the very best of reasons. I have examined the neurological readings most attentively. I am quite convinced that she was suffering coercion from the moment she arrived in Sickbay and possibly even before that, and that if we had not succeeded in intervening, she would have been forced to participate in an extremely aggressive assault on the lieutenant's mind. I have already informed the captain that I hold her responsible for his survival." He twinkled. "With a certain amount of assistance from a number of Starfleet personnel, of course."

_"¿En serio?" _ The Armoury officer blinked thoughtfully, reviewing the information. "Well. When they are both recovered, we shall see." She looked back at the double doors. "It is perhaps not the best of times to make my report, no?"

"No," said Phlox, at his most uninformative.

Her gaze swivelled towards him. "Ah," she said after a moment. "Well, in that case, I shall return to the Bridge."

"I think that would be an excellent idea, Ensign," approved the doctor. "I am sure Mister Reed will be much more able to give your report the appropriate attention tomorrow."

_"Absolutamente." _A dry smile._ "Buenas noches, _Doctor._" _And she made her way back to the Tactical Station, there to spend the rest of her spell of duty contemplating how the rest of the situation could be resolved as successfully.

* * *

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	23. Chapter 23

"No, Lieutenant, you cannot return to duty today, and probably not tomorrow either. I will be keeping you in my lair for a little while longer, so I suggest you reconcile yourself to that fact."

"Doctor, I feel perfectly _fine._" Reed glared at him. "The ship is still in a potentially hostile situation and as the head of Tactical I ought to be on duty!"

"Then you have reason to believe that your appointed deputies are incapable of acting appropriately in your absence?"

Silence, though the glare doubled in wattage.

"Furthermore, I have advised the captain of my decision," pursued Phlox. "I imagine he will be visiting you after breakfast to inquire after your health."

"At least let me get into uniform, then!"

"Lieutenant, given the history of your visits to Sickbay, I assure you the captain is not going to be shocked by finding you in a set of underwear." Though the Denobulan reflected that Captain Archer would have been beyond shocked if he'd walked into Sickbay some hours earlier, when he would have found the Merixan Weapons Master fast asleep in the same bed as Malcolm Reed, curled up and tucked into the shelter of his arms like a hibernating Rigelian dormouse. By the time that Phlox's early morning visit was officially scheduled to take place, however, Human and Merix had been safely in separate beds, ignoring each other as though they'd hardly been introduced; and the doctor had with some difficulty concealed a smile at their rather belated attempt at discretion.

He himself was more intrigued than shocked by the development – besides the fact that he was a believer in natural methods of healing being far more efficacious than artificial ones, he often worried about the way that absurd Starfleet regulations and the long voyage imposed stressful periods of celibacy on the crew. Nevertheless, given the fact that the Starfleet officer had suffered what had probably been a very serious assault by the Merixan female, the fact that he now appeared to be perfectly comfortable sharing his bed with her testified to some remarkable quality in whatever had gone on during their mental connection. The neurological scans supported that theory. There was no evidence whatsoever now of the odd, jagged spikes in Lieutenant Reed's brain-activity that had been so clear an indication of his mental distress. Ordinarily the treatment for such an attack would have required a serious regimen of counselling at the very least, and usually a period of recovery away from duty. Whereas now, both from his behaviour and the readouts, it appeared that the lieutenant was – in his own idiom – 'raring to go'; not merely demanding to be allowed to return to duty, but even worrying about his appearance when the captain came to visit. Both of which were, to Phlox's experienced eye, hugely encouraging indicators that his most regular and unwilling patient was well on the way to recovery.

Reed subsided with a scowl, but a moment later came back into the attack with a demand to be at least allowed to review the reports from his section.

Phlox was ready for that too. "I'm informed that the reports contain nothing that requires your immediate attention," he said mildly. "Your deputies have carried out an exemplary job of overseeing matters in your absence. Tomorrow, perhaps, I may decide you are sufficiently recovered to be given them, but that will depend on the level of your co-operation today."

This was an old and familiar tactic between them. The lieutenant plainly recognized that, for he sank back onto the bio-bed again with the glower of a caged tiger.

"You have just been through an experience that was evidently deeply traumatic to you, Lieutenant," the doctor went on gently, indicating the healing gel with which he had treated the multiple self-inflicted weals on his patient's body. "As your physician, it's my duty to make sure you are fully recovered before you resume your duties. In my own way, believe me, I am as committed to the welfare of the ship and the crew as you are."

Reed looked away briefly, and then nodded, coloring a little. "I understand, Doctor," he said gruffly. He didn't apologize, but there were no more protests, and he was docile as Phlox carried out a number of tests both on him and on the Merixan female, who was similarly co-operative and appeared understandably uncertain of how she would be treated after yesterday's events, though the doctor did his best to be gently reassuring.

Half way through this operation, Crewman Cutler put in an appearance, carrying the baby.

"Only woke twice in the night, Akuti said," she announced cheerfully. "Mom woke up enough to feed her, and she's just had her diaper changed, so she's good to go."

"I bet that was a new one for the quartermaster," commented the Englishman.

"Oh, you don't know him, sir. He's used to getting asked for all sorts of things." She jiggled the baby gently – partly, Phlox suspected, to give herself time to get over her own daring in speaking so informally to Lieutenant Reed, whom he knew she regarded with a degree of apprehension that her experience the day before would not have lessened. "And we couldn't have you in a wet diaper, could we, sweetie?"

"Well, ideally she should be returned to her mother, but in the circumstances perhaps Weapons Master Yathai would be the best person to take over her care for the time being," said Phlox briskly. He was not wholly comfortable with the idea of keeping even a dangerous prisoner constantly sedated, but the captain had been emphatic on that point: they still had far too little information on what threat Hirgev could still pose, and until that issue was clearer, she was to be kept drugged. Fortunately, the Merixa found the Earth gravity on board ship somewhat draining, so Hirgev only required a relatively low dose; and Phlox, needing far less sleep than the average Human, had experienced no difficulty in keeping a close watch on her welfare.

At his nod, Cutler handed over the infant; Yathai received the baby eagerly if inexpertly, needing a little coaching in how to hold her properly.

"I would like to be allowed to look after her," the Merix said rather shyly. "If someone could show me what to do…"

"We will all help you." Phlox smiled encouragingly. Having had much experience with babies in his extended Denobulan family, he was perfectly at home with them, and until the infant could be reunited with Hirgev he felt that it would be most suitable for her to be in the care of a person of her own species, especially in view of the fact that Yathai and Hirgev had apparently shared some kind of emotional attachment.

What the status of that attachment would be after the previous day's events, there was no saying. However, it had to be regarded as a necessary casualty.

The hiss of the double doors at that moment announced the arrival of Captain Archer, with Trip in tow. It seemed that they had both been too eager for news to wait until after breakfast.

Lieutenant Reed, predictably, sat up straight in bed and looked acutely uncomfortable. "Sir."

Yathai, in contrast, shrank back a little, staring at the captain with apprehension and guilt in her eyes. She said nothing.

For the moment, however, he did not glance in her direction, but halted beside his tactical officer. "Lieutenant. You've caused us quite a bit of trouble this time." His voice was quite even, his face inexpressive.

"Sir," said the Englishman again, swallowing. "I…."

"Guess you owe us all a drink," Trip chipped in, grinning.

Reed glanced at him in bewilderment, and then back at the captain, who clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. "It's good to have you back with us, Malcolm."

Faint color rose through the lieutenant's previous pallor. He blinked, and swallowed a second time. "Sir, I'm afraid I … My behaviour…"

"When you're fit for duty, I'll expect a full report," Archer told him gently. "Until then, take it easy and stop worrying."

Phlox, who was unobtrusively feeding his osmotic eel, restrained himself with an effort from a derisive snort. Lieutenant Reed was the most compulsive worrier on the ship at the best of times; now, when he had almost dragged Starfleet into a major diplomatic incident, and followed up this feat by physically assaulting his commanding officer, his superior officer and a couple of his own staff, telling him not to worry about it was rather on a par with telling him to stop breathing.

The captain evidently realized that the message would require reinforcement. "Malcolm, you were not to blame for what happened," he went on, his voice quiet and intense. "I know there are some things we don't have all the details of yet, but I know you were coerced into what you did. I have absolute confidence in your professional conduct. No-one's going to blame you for something you couldn't help."

Reed's head came up. "Sir, I was not the only person who suffered coercion," he said stiffly. "If there is … if you intend to hold an investigation, I request permission to attend and testify."

Archer nodded. "I think we need to do that sooner rather than later. The Merixa down there are going to start getting suspicious about why two people have suddenly vanished into thin air. They know we're still here, and they'll probably put two and two together."

"Captain." Yathai spoke up suddenly. "You are endangering your ship by sheltering us. Unless you intend to submit us to your own judicial process for sentencing, you should hand us over to the Javnan Government for execution as soon as possible."

He turned towards her, and Phlox tensed slightly. During the conversation he'd had with the captain the previous evening, it had been clear that the Human harbored a great deal of resentment towards the Merixa; hardly surprising, given the demonstration he'd had of his tactical officer's anguish, but not, perhaps, entirely justified. Nevertheless the doctor knew how fiercely protective the captain was of his crew, and resolved to step in if it became necessary.

"Right now, you're aboard my ship," Archer said levelly. "I certainly have to hold an investigation into what happened, and I expect you to co-operate, but our civilization outgrew the use of capital punishment a long time ago. As for the Javnan Government, I may not be able to influence their readiness to kill people, but I sure don't have to provide them their victims. And even if that wasn't the case, there's someone there" – a nod towards the baby –"whose welfare has to be taken into account."

"She would not be harmed, Captain," she answered honestly. "She would be raised to accept the new regime, that is all. Even on Javna, we do not make war on children."

"That's something we'd need to discuss at the investigation. In the meantime, the main thing that worries me is our other guest." He looked hard at her. "Do you think she'd be prepared to see reason now? Accept our help, if we can find some way through this?"

Yathai looked down and bit her lip. "I would like to think so. I do not know. Since the … since I … she has closed the bond between us. I betrayed her."

It would be futile to argue against that statement; in Hirgev's eyes, that would be exactly what had happened. The captain nodded curtly, though his face relaxed somewhat at her honesty. "I'll be convening the investigation sometime this morning. Subject to Phlox's permission, I want you both to hold yourself in readiness."

Meeting his inquiring glance, the Denobulan nodded in his turn. "I foresee no problem, Captain. And I imagine you will want Minister Hirgev to be present too."

"Of course. I'm sure the security team will do a good job of keeping her under control, but they'll work with you, Doc. I don't want any more attacks on a member of my crew." With which final statement, the captain walked out of Sickbay, doubtless to eat his breakfast and then attend to all the myriad small duties with which his daily routine began.

Commander Tucker had lingered. "At least all the shootin' practice paid off," he said to Lieutenant Reed with a grin, as he prepared to leave.

The reminder was greeted with a rather sour smile. "If you couldn't hit me at that distance, Commander, I'd have scheduled you for two hours' phase pistol practice every day for a month."

"Must have just been havin' such a temptin' target to aim at," were the Chief Engineer's parting words. It was perhaps unsurprising that they were uttered just before the double doors closed behind him.

Commander Tucker, reflected Phlox, was finally developing a sense of self-preservation.

* * *

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	24. Chapter 24

The meeting took place at mid-morning.

It was obvious by then that the ship's continued presence in orbit around the planet was indeed making the Merixan government somewhat suspicious; they had already received a hail from the new Council. The captain's quick thinking in inventing a non-existent minor problem with the warp engine bought them a breathing space, but Varlahay's patience was clearly running out. Doubtless with an eye to future relations with Starfleet, he made no direct accusation, but his allusion to the illegality of aiding rebels could hardly have been more pointed. T'Pol deflected the barb with one of her own by smoothly stating that however inhumane the visitors might consider the new Government's actions to be, it was contrary to Starfleet regulations (not to mention those of the Vulcan High Command) to interfere in a planet's internal political affairs.

The exchange had ended shortly after that, but the ship would soon have to leave. The possibility of attack might be remote, but it could not be discounted altogether.

In view of the fact that Malcolm was still officially listed as unfit for duty, his Beta shift deputy Bernhard Müller was in charge of Minister Hirgev, whom he and another Armory ensign escorted from the Brig. The captain felt that in view of the seriousness of what had happened, only the senior officers should be present, but he regarded Hirgev as still sufficiently a potential threat to warrant Müller remaining. He knew that Malcolm had enormous faith in his deputy's trustworthiness, and it was impossible to believe that the sturdy Bavarian would not treat anything he inadvertently heard as completely confidential.

When the meeting was convened, therefore, Trip and T'Pol were the only other attendees in uniform. Both Malcolm and former Weapons Master Yathai were in leisure suits, and Hirgev was still in the loose surgical garment she had been given in Sickbay, even though she had been offered the loan of more appropriate clothing. Phlox was also invited, as much to keep an eye on his patients as to lend his intellect to the puzzle of how to remove their guests from the ship without effectively putting them in front of a firing squad.

The captain watched closely as Hirgev was brought in, last of all the arrivals. The sedation was wearing off, so Bernhard was armed and alert, guiding his charge politely to a chair and then stepping back to stand against the wall directly behind her.

Yathai had brought in the baby, and without prompting handed her to Phlox, who took her to Hirgev. The exchange was effected without waking the sleeping infant, whose barbels remained tightly curled even when her mother's quested lightly across her face as though dropping kisses there.

"I guess you all know the situation by now," said Jon without preamble when everyone was settled. "For the record, I'd appreciate a full explanation by our guests for what happened down on the planet and in Sickbay."

He wasn't surprised when Hirgev set her mouth in an obstinate line and said nothing. Yathai, however, met his gaze.

"It was a counsel of desperation, Captain," she said quietly. "We realized that, alone, we had no chance of defeating the forces being brought against us. If we could contrive to make our enemy believe that you had come in on our side, with your superior technology, it might give them pause; at the least, it would buy us a little time." She glanced at Malcolm, who was staring silently at the table in front of him. "Your tactical officer was the key to our plan. We drugged your First Officer to prevent her from interfering, and then I attacked him, taking over enough of his mind to render him open to telepathic commands. When he returned to the ship I ordered him to open fire on the enemy positions, using the ship's weaponry to maximum effect. You know more than we do of how that was prevented."

"I do." His voice was grim as he recalled that horrifying moment when one of his officers had opened fire on another, for no apparent reason whatsoever. The exact method of the 'attack' on Malcolm was something that was not suitable for open discussion, however, and he was glad that she'd been deliberately vague about it. "Go on."

"We did not know why we failed, but the attack on the city opened as we had expected. Also as we had expected, even with the changes that Lieutenant Reed suggested we did not have sufficient forces to repel the advance or even to hold it." She drew a shaky breath, and passed a hand across her forehead. "When it was finally obvious that further resistance was pointless, we ordered those remaining with us to make their escape as best they could, and told them we would attempt the same. Hirgev had a refuge in mind, and as I still had a mental connection to your lieutenant she suggested that we try to contact you and ask for us to be given sanctuary. After all, it might be that you would not know that we had been complicit in what he had tried to do. Even if you did, she said, you would be merciful. And if you were – there was an alternative plan. Our combined strength would be sufficient to gain access to Lieutenant Reed's technological knowledge – knowledge that we could use to buy our survival. I agreed to this."

"You two had some nerve!" said Trip beneath his breath.

Jon frowned him to silence, and Yathai went on, explaining in the same low, level voice how even though their sanctuary had not proven as useful as they had expected, the offer of rescue by _Enterprise _had played into their hands regardless. As soon as she was alone she had begun to implement the new plan, renewing the attack on her victim's mind so that he was rendered helpless by his own crewmates.

"Sir, permission to speak," Malcolm interrupted at that moment.

The captain paused. "Granted."

The Englishman rose to his feet and adopted a formal 'parade rest' posture. "Sir, I am in the best position to speak with authority on what happened to me. The pattern of attack was quite different to the previous time. I don't deny for a moment that Weapons Master Yathai was involved, but she herself came under compulsion – from Minister Hirgev."

"Impossible, Lieutenant," said Phlox. "She was in the final stages of childbirth!"

"I know what I felt, Doctor," replied Malcolm steadily. His gaze was fixed on Hirgev, although she did not return it. "And Yathai began to resist. That was what allowed me to try – as far as I was able – to warn the crew what was happening."

"'Her,'" the captain remembered, realizing. "You were actually saying '_Hir'_!"

T'Pol interposed coolly, though her expression was not unsympathetic. "Lieutenant. It may be that this was what Weapons Master Yathai intended you to think, in order to escape sole responsibility for the assault. Doctor Phlox has said he believes it impossible for Minister Hirgev to have engaged in telepathic manipulation during something as stressful as childbirth."

Jon stared at Hirgev. "Have you any comment to make regarding these … allegations?"

There was a silence. She was stroking the baby's face with her index finger, and did not look up.

He transferred his attention to Yathai, who had obviously been waiting for his permission to continue. "Do you corroborate Lieutenant Reed's allegation?"

Her head came up. She had gone rather pale. "I have admitted to what I have done, Captain. I attacked your lieutenant on our world and I attacked him again on your ship, breaking my given word to you in the process, as I knew I would have to when I gave it. As for what any other has done or not done, I have nothing to say."

"Do not keep silence on my account," spat Hirgev suddenly. "Protect your new _suewa _with whatever will save both of you."

Yathai went perfectly white, and her barbels recoiled in on themselves completely. "Is that what you think he is?"

There was a squeal of flooring as Hirgev's chair was shoved violently backwards, and behind her Ensign Müller's phase pistol fairly leaped into his hand. The ex-ichexin sprang to her feet, clutching the baby to her so abruptly and tightly that the infant woke and wailed with fright and discomfort.

"Yes, I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him _dead!_ He took you from me! Do you deny it?" she demanded, her face suddenly a drawn mask of rage and pain. "And did you think I would not know where you spent last night?"

For a moment Yathai seemed too stunned to speak, but then she too leaped to her feet and leaned across the table. "You closed the bond! You denied me! After all these years, I was alone – and free to do as I chose!" Her hands moved as though about to begin gesturing, but she slammed them down on the polished surface in front of her. "No – I will say aloud what must be said. There was a debt to be paid, and I offered to pay it – and this time in honest coin. I offered myself to him freely, to do with whatever he would, in reparation for what I had done to him – and do you know what he did to me?"

There was an electric silence, in which Jon wondered if any of them could catch Malcolm before he threw himself out the nearest airlock.

_"Nothing!" _Yathai's voice pealed out triumphantly. "He said that the only thing he desired more than my body was my trust, and that he would betray the one if he took the other. And when I wept for the loss of my _suewa _and my honour he comforted me. And yes, I spent the night in his bed, and in his arms, and now that I see the manner of man I betrayed I think I will never outlive the shame of it. But as for more than that, no, and no, and no! You are wrong to see all men as enemies, and you were wrong to force me to do what you did, but you are still my Beloved."

Hirgev's eyes were tearless, but during this speech her rigid barbels had slowly begun to droop down her face like the stamens in a dying lily. "This … this is the truth?" she said haltingly.

"Every word." The younger woman's eyes traveled around the Starfleet personnel around the table. "Now more than ever I can no longer believe the 'truths' in which we were raised: that men are monsters that must be tamed rather than trusted. I cannot believe there are none among our own who have no such honor as these. And if we are spared to return to Javna, for as long as we survive there, I will do everything I can to try to spread that message. I will not ask you to try with me, because you cannot believe as I do. I will only ask you to believe that I act as I must."

There was a long silence, in which Hirgev looked at Malcolm, who stared straight ahead of him as though he were attending his own court-martial, though twin spots of color burned in his cheeks. Then Jon watched her stare slowly around at the aliens who even now were trying to save their treacherous guests from being killed by their own people when they returned to the planet's surface. She looked at him longest of all.

The hand giving only secondary support to the wailing baby detached itself almost as though moving independently, and described a complex motion in the air; one that somehow amplified the expression of loss and bewilderment that crept over her face. _"Wrong?" _she asked hollowly. "All these years, all these deaths … for nothing?"

"I do not know," Yathai admitted. "But I am willing to try to find out."

"That's going to be dangerous," said Jon, speaking for the first time in a while, and quietly, because it seemed to him that something so momentous and yet so fragile was happening here that one wrong word could shatter it. "You may have a problem finding anyone else who agrees with you – or is willing to take the risk."

_"I _am willing to take the risk," she answered, looking him in the eyes. "I want you to return me to Javna, pretending that you caught me trying to make an escape aboard your ship. You will be in a position to make demands, with me in your possession. Demand only that I be allowed to speak to the ichexic and his council before I am executed."

"Sir!" Malcolm found his voice again, loud with indignation at the idea; though he was only a fraction of a breath quicker than both Trip and Phlox, and even T'Pol wore the Vulcan equivalent of a scowl. Behind Hirgev, Ensign Müller restored the phase pistol to its clip and stepped back again, but without uttering a word even he managed to convey his entire agreement with his boss's dismay.

"I admire your courage, Weapons Master." Jon spoke slowly, though he was thinking hard. "The problem is, I know exactly what Varlahay and the council will say."

"They'll say you're tryin' to buy your way out of the execution," said Trip flatly. "And they won't believe a word of it."

"But I am not. I will die willingly. And maybe, just maybe, one of them may remember my words. It will be a seed planted, and if I must water it with my blood then perhaps it will have a chance to grow."

T'Pol stood up suddenly. "Captain. Excuse me for a moment." She stepped to the comm panel on the wall, and paged the Bridge.

_"Bridge. Sato here."_

"Ensign. Has the pattern of scanning anomalies I mentioned to you earlier continued to occur?"

_"Yes, Sub-commander. Pretty regularly. They're not long, and they only happen in that one area, but they seem to be consistent. It may be a temporary problem with the satellites, or…"_

"Please continue to monitor them. Inform me immediately if there is any change. T'Pol out."

She turned back. "The anomalies I mentioned have been occurring for the past couple of hours over a sparsely-populated rural area on one of the larger land masses on the planet, one which is extremely remote from Bai. There is apparently no obvious technological explanation for them, but their existence is fortuitous." Her gaze drifted to meet the captain's. At a guess, she was thinking the same thing he was: that the 'dragon-birds' were once again at work, creating windows of opportunity for the transportation of the refugees into a place no-one would look for them. There was, after all, no way for the Starfleet visitors to know exactly how aware the 'collective consciousness' was of what had happened up here on the ship, but it appeared that it had been monitoring events closely; an awesome possibility. "I should imagine that in such a relatively isolated area, attitudes may have … softened somewhat over the years. The inhabitants of such a place might well be more receptive to a 'revolutionary' idea, brought by people with whose identity they are unfamiliar. It would not be beyond the bounds of probability that ground such as this would be far more suitable for sowing the 'seed' of which Weapons Master Yathai spoke. At least it would have relative peace in which to put down roots; and if it did, the chances of it growing undisturbed until it became powerful enough to spread elsewhere on the planet would be vastly greater." Another pause. "I would by no means ordinarily advocate intervening in a planet's culture, but in my opinion, unless we intervene there will soon _be _no culture. If members of the indigenous population decide of their own free will to attempt to establish a peace, I regard it as our duty to do everything in our power to assist them."

"You wish us to escape _unpunished?" _asked Hirgev in disbelief. "After everything that we did?"

Jon smiled wryly. "I prefer to think of it as 'salvaging something out of the wreckage.' At a guess, if the authorities find no trace of your bodies, they'll eventually decide that keeping on Starfleet's good side is more valuable to them than making accusations without any proof. They'll probably put you down as 'Missing, Presumed Dead.' And even if they don't, I think I'll have done my duty by returning you to your own world to take your chances. As I told the Weapons Master here this morning, our civilization outgrew capital punishment a while ago. I'll take_ my_ chances, as far as that goes."

"The likelihood of the search for you being prosecuted in such a place is minimal," the Vulcan went on. "Your courage in being willing to accept your punishment is, of course, laudable, but I would imagine that life in a rural community would be very different to that in the civilized surroundings to which you are accustomed. It will not be easy and may very well not be as long."

Yathai drew a deep breath. "I can only accept – with gratitude. If you can send me there without being detected in doing so, it would be more than I deserve."

"Send _us_ there," corrected Hirgev quietly. "If your generosity will stretch so far, Captain, then two can work more efficaciously than one. And it may be that the child here will be the first to be raised in a new world, if we can succeed."

Water and glasses had been set out on the table, as was the standard practice during meetings. In the silence, Trip poured out a measure and saluted with it.

"I'll drink to that," he said.

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	25. The Epilogue

The next anomaly occurred very shortly afterwards, and the ship's guests used the transporter for the second and last time. Hoshi, monitoring events from the Bridge, noted that the anomaly was shorter than the others and ended within moments of the transport. She was unsurprised when no more occurred, and radio messages from the surface suggested that the authorities had put it down to some temporary glitch that had now sorted itself out. Technological problems thanks to the wildlife were apparently not an unusual occurrence, and were accepted with mostly good-humored resignation.

For the ship to leave orbit immediately after such an occurrence, however, might have appeared suspicious. The warp engine's spurious problem could conceivably take a few more hours to fix, and to lend verisimilitude _Enterprise _went through a few minor maneuvers that might suggest to any observers that something to do with the propulsion system was being tested.

Then, just before the shift ended, Captain Archer asked her to put a message through to Ichexic Varlahay. "Tell him the problem's fixed and we're grateful for his patience," he said, rising from his command chair. "I guess we've done about all we can here. Now we've got to leave them to it. Travis, as soon as we get the acknowledgment, take us out of here."

"Who knows? Maybe in a few years they'll come lookin' for us to say thanks," said Trip with a grin.

"I would strongly doubt whether such a change as you envisage could take place in such a relatively short time," T'Pol pointed out. "Attitudes as entrenched as those of the Merixa can take many, many years to change. It will not be quick, nor easy, if it happens at all."

"Maybe we'll never know." The captain stretched until his shoulder muscles cracked audibly. "All I know is that we gave it a chance. Now I'm going to wash and change and get something to eat, and then I'm going to catch an early night – catch up on all the sleep I've missed since this all started."

"I'm with you there." Trip turned to follow him from the Bridge. "Think I'll check on Malcolm when I'm changed, see if he fancies catching dinner in the Mess." His grin suggested that this kind invitation might not be unconnected with the topic of a certain metal object now irretrievably associated with the Reed family honor.

"He's in the rearward observation lounge, sir," called Travis. "Or he was at lunchtime. He said he wanted some time to think, but he may be back in Sickbay by now."

"Thanks for the tip, Travis. I'll try there." The turbo-lift door closed behind the two men.

T'Pol handed over the science station to her waiting beta-shift replacement and walked over to Tactical. Even without concentrating, Hoshi heard her quietly commending Bernhard on his handling of the situation earlier, and advising him that Phlox believed Lieutenant Reed would be fit to return to duty the next day after all, if only somewhat restricted until he passed a second medical.

The 'Message Received' button winked on the communications console. Moments later – although she might have been imagining it – the board gave a single, brief, all-but inaudible hum, and then fell silent.

She passed the message to Travis that the ship was now cleared to leave, according to the captain's order.

"We'll be out of here in a couple of minutes. Just calculating the co-ordinates." He stretched too, clearly glad at the prospect of leaving a place that had caused so much trouble, though it seemed the captain had found a way to work things out somehow. Doubtless, if it wasn't classified, Trip would fill the two of them in about it next time they met up in the Mess Hall – after all, they had all been involved in solving the problem, hadn't they?

Her replacement having arrived and taken over the comms board, Hoshi slipped into the turbo-lift, which had now returned. Instead of pressing the button for 'E' Deck, however, she found her finger pressing the one for 'B' Deck instead.

The rear observation lounge, or 'upper observation deck', as it was more properly called, was not a large area. Most people preferred the view forward. This was why people of a solitary disposition, or who wished to have time to themselves, tended to gravitate there.

The most solitary man she'd ever encountered was still there, leaning against the wall beside a viewing port and staring at the planet they were about to leave. He looked tired, and for once strangely vulnerable. She wondered yet again exactly what had happened to him down there, and whether she'd ever know.

Trying to act as though she'd just come to admire the view herself, she strolled to the other viewing port, and only then glanced at him directly.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "If you … if you'd rather be alone, I'll leave." They were both off duty, so strictly speaking she didn't have to use 'sir', though she certainly wouldn't use his given name – not in these odd circumstances, when there was so much uncertainty about exactly why he was off sick; whatever had been done to him, he seemed to her somehow a little haunted. Though perhaps that was just her imagination working overtime.

"There's no need. Actually, I was about to come and look for you." He turned his head, and after looking at her for a moment took a small, folded piece of paper from one of his pockets and handed it to her. "What does that word mean in Merixan?"

"'Mialcai'?" She hesitated. "It depends on the context. It can mean a bridge, but usually it means 'rainbow'."

The deck plating under their feet thrummed to the impulse engines coming on line. The ship wouldn't go to warp until the last planet of the system was safely left behind.

Moments from now, Javna and everyone on it would be left far behind. Automatically they both looked out.

It seemed that the planet tilted, though it was only the ship banking to leave orbit on the required heading. The long rays of the sun peeping from behind Javna's rim glanced across the planet's icy ring and refracted through it.

The effect was beautiful.

"That's what they called the baby," said Malcolm softly.

She looked up at him again. "I've always believed in wishing on a rainbow."

He rested the side of his forehead against the viewing port, and smiled down at her: for once an open, unguarded smile that lit his whole face. The expression made her heart turn over.

"So have I, Hoshi," he said quietly. So have I."

**The End.**

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